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FOOD AND 
LIFE 




Lansing - Qulick 




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FOOD AND LIFE 



BY 

MARION FLORENCE LANSING 

r 

IN COLLABORATION WITH 

LUTHER HALSEY GULICK 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 



COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY MARION FLORENCE LANSING 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



320.2 / J 



GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



• CI.A565311 



PREFACE 

Children have a normal, spontaneous interest in food. To 
a child each meal is a matter of fresh and vital consequence. 
His own experience prepares him to appreciate that what he 
eats has a direct and important bearing on his health and 
comfort. He responds readily to a call to take a more intelli- 
gent interest and a more active concern in his food needs and 
habits. War did a real service in bringing people back from the 
conventionally remote attitude of modern civilization to a vivid 
realization of the interest and importance of this universal 
human need. It drove home also the truth that while their 
elders have a responsibility for children's food, children have 
in their own right a relation of their own to this as to other 
concerns of daily life. 

To Dr. Gulick there came as an inspiration the vision of a 
new rating of boys and girls in all their social relations. He 
saw them not only as "futures," not only as potential citizens 
and homemakers, but as " presents," contributing everywhere 
by doing their part as boys and girls. To him the book owes 
its inspiration and inception. His faith in the power of boys 
and girls as an effective factor in national life and service was 
amply justified during the war. To-day the government is 
making every effort to capitalize this youthful enthusiasm 
and persistence as a permanent asset in our individual and 



vi FOOD AND LIFE 

community life, and as a part of our national share in banishing 

famine, waste, and misery from the world brotherhood. This 

book is intended to aid in that movement. 

From its pages the child will learn the facts he should know 

concerning the great Food Business into which he is born and 

in which he is a partner. He will be led to see the need of his 

becoming an intelligent and active partner. He will come into 

a sense of the world brotherhood which is the hope of the 

future. The ethical side is often more natural to the child than 

the technical details. There is hardly a virtue or an ideal of 

family, community, and world life which does not take a natural 

place in a study of the fundamental human problem of food. 

The actual facts are most interesting when presented simply 

and entertainingly. Knowledge recently contributed by science 

has made this a new subject, and one far more readily grasped 

by boys and girls than it could have been five or even two years 

ago. With a sufficient amount of information to make the book 

a complete and satisfying whole, the aim has been to suggest 

as well as to inform. From this book the child goes to the 

geography lesson, to the physiology and domestic-science class, 

to the garden, to the store, and to the home with a newly 

awakened interest. Not only does he kiunv ; knowing, he is 

stimulated at each point to do. The chapters will serve their 

purpose best if the knowledge each imparts is a stimulus, 

not an end. Together they provide the necessary background 

of information, education, and inspiration for the child's life 

as it relates to and is interpreted by his food. 

M. F. L. 
Cambridge, Massachusetts 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Life Business i 

II. The Food Tether 6 

III. In Business for Yourself 14 

IV. Food as Fuel 21 

V. Food as Fuel (Continued) 27 

VI. Our Daily Bread 36 

VII. The Magic Touch 43 

VIII. Likes and Dislikes S3 

IX. A World Appetite 60 

X. The First Step 67 

XI. The Moment of Eating . 75 

XII. In the World's Food Market 82 

XIII. The Pitcher and the Loaf 89 

XIV. The Gift of a Garden 96 

XV. Kitchen Service 107 

XVI. Food and Monev 119 

XVII. For Future Use 128 

XVIII. Food and Health 137 

XIX. Food and the Government 145 

XX. At a World Table 153 

FACTS AND FIGURES 161 

Weight as a Test. The Garrison Ration with its 
Substitutes. The Calorie. The ioo-Calorie Portion. 
Taste and Smell. Milk. School Children and the 
Government. Three Meals a Day. For Further 
Reference. 

INDEX , 181 

vii 



FOOD AND LIFE 

CHAPTER I 

A LIFE BUSINESS 

Boys and girls often talk over what they will do in 
life. They wonder what calling they will follow when 
they are men and women. There is one business into 
which everyone is born, a business which everyone 
will surely follow all his life. This is the food business. 
Three times a day, seven days in the week, fifty-two 
weeks in the year, — to say nothing of odd times be- 
tween, — every boy and girl, every man and woman, 
wishes, expects, and needs food. To get this food is 
man's chief business in life. So it must always be. 
When this is attended to, then and then only can he 
go about other matters. 

To enter into this business you who read this book 
need not make a special request or application to-day. 
You did that long ago. From the moment when as 
a tiny baby you first cried for food, you have been 
enrolled on its lists. The minute you were born. Life, 
the manager of this business firm or company, took 
you into partnership and set you to work. So it takes 



2 FOOD AND LIFE 

into partnership every living thing, whether it be 
plant or animal. Without food existence is impossible. 
No plant is so independent that it can live without 
food ; no animal body is so built that it can go more 
than a short time without nourishment. 

When a young man is received into a business, he 
is expected to take some share in carrying it on. You 
have done a good bit of work in the company already. 
When you were born you weighed seven or eight 
or nine pounds. In a few months you doubled that 
weight. Think how much you weigh now. All this 
weight and growth have come directly from the food 
you have eaten. That you have used this food well 
is shown by the fact that you are strong and healthy 
and that you weigh six, seven, or eight times as much 
as you did in the first weeks or months of your life. 
It is a good business partner who can make such big 
returns in a few short years. 

Man's section of this great food enterprise of the 
world has three main departments. One has for its 
headquarters the land ; here the food must be raised. 
In this department Nature takes the heavier share of 
the work, man doing only a small assisting part. In 
the second department man is the active agent. He 
acts as middleman, delivering the food which has 
been grown on the land to the human body in a form 
in which it can be taken. The food is bought or ex- 
changed, transported, prepared, cooked, and served.. 
Commerce, conservation, cooperation, all are needed 




U. S. Food Administration 

IT TAKES ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE TO FEED THE WORLD " 



4 FOOD AND LIFE 

here. The third department has as many separate 
stations as there are people in the world. In each 
human body the food must be eaten, digested, and 
distributed. 

It is interesting to be in business. You have found 
it so already. You will find it increasingly so the 
more you know about this business and the more you 
share in it. Let us check up the part which you as 
a boy or girl can have. Let us see what part you are 
already having. 

In the third department — the eating department — 
you give place to no one. Food is one of the chief 
joys of life to hungry boys and girls. You want it, 
you enjoy it, and, as the old phrase goes, it agrees 
with you. You turn it to the best of use. You grow 
tall and broaden out each year until you are of age 
and have reached your natural limit of growth. 

In the second department — the buying, preparing, 
cooking, and serving — you are having an increasing 
part each year. In the first department — the raising 
of food — your garden entitles you to a place. There 
is, then, not a single division in this great world busi- 
ness, except perhaps the buying, where you must 
wait to take any share until you are grown up. You 
are in each department now. 

If you are partners in a business, you cannot afford 
not to know about it. The only way an office boy 
ever works up to a higher position is by finding out 
all about the departments in which he is working. 



A LIFE BUSINESS 5 

This book is to tell you about this huge Food Concern, 
with its powerful silent partners, Nature and Life, and 
its active agents, of whom each of you is one. It will 
tell the facts that you must know in order to succeed 
in your part of the business ; it will show you what 
other agents are doing and how you can work with 
them ; it will help you to get the biggest returns out 
of your partnership and do your utmost to make this 
great world Food Business succeed. 

QUESTIONS 

What is the one business in which every human being must take 
part? 

What are its three departments ? 

In how many of its departments have you taken a share ? 

How much have you increased in weight since you were born ? 




CHAPTER II 

THE FOOD TETHER 

Need for food is a tether which keeps man tied to 
the land. Cokimbus was able to discover America be- 
cause he could take in the holds of his ships food 
enough to keep his crew alive until he reached shore. 
As often as his men grew discouraged they would be- 
gin to figure on the food supply. " We have sailed for 
so many days and eaten so much food," they would 
say. " We can sail home safely on the food we have. 
If we keep on and do not find land, we shall run short 
of food and die." Just as we are learning to-day that a 
hungry nation tends toward anarchy, so every explorer 
of that day knew that a hungry crew was always ripe for 
mutiny. The success of a voyage depended on whether 
the leader's faith in the unknown land ahead could 
hold the balance true against the discouraging pull 
upon the spirits of his men of a decreasing food supply. 

So much food, so many days of life : that is the rule. 
As a man is held down to earth by the force of gravity, 
which keeps him from being tossed hither and yon by 
every wind that blows, so he is held to his home and 
his everyday life by this tether. It anchors him as 
firmly as a cord ever held a flying kite. 



THE FOOD TETHER 7 

You know the story of the old-time giant Antaeus, 
the famous wrestler, who renewed his strength every 
time he touched earth. Even so man is held to the land. 
Hercules overcame the giant by holding him up from 
the earth. Think what circumstances draw men away 
from their food supply. War is one ; city life is another ; 
flood or earthquake or similar natural disasters may be 
others. We shall talk about some of them later. 

Man's tether is longer than that of any other living 
creature. He owes its length to his adaptable body 
and his clever mind. In food necessities, as in the 
matter of climate, he is wonderfully adaptable. Most 
birds and animals eat only a few kinds of food ; man 
eats almost anything that any member of the animal 
world eats. Next to man the English sparrow, the 
dog, and the cat are said to be most adaptable in their 
food requirements. Matching the marvelous body 
machine, which can make use of almost any kind of 
foodstuff, is the clever mind, which has devised ways 
to prepare, store, preserv^e, and transport food. The 
animal eats raw the food which he finds, and eats it at 
or near the place where he has found it. Man cooks, 
dries, cans, and in a thousand ways treats his food to 
meet his needs. His adaptable body lets him travel 
and dwell wherever the land is fertile ; his ingenious 
mind enables him to store and carry his food until he 
is free to encircle the globe. 

Peary could reach the north pole because twenty 
years of study had taught him what food to carry and 



8 FOOD AND LIFE 

in what form to carry it so that his men might bear the 
strain of that terrible arctic journey. He could go far 
beyond the usual limit of man's travels. He could leave 
behind fertile lands where food abounded and go into 
the wilderness, where little or no food could be found. 




TRANSPORTING THE ARCTIC RATION 



He planned and selected by a standard which we 
who live at home need not consider. The food had 
to occupy as little space and be as light in weight as 
possible. Every added ounce of weight to be carried 
took just so much from the needed strength of his 
men ; every foot of the small space on the sledges 
must be used to the best advantage. 

This is what he says about his supplies: 

The essentials, and the only essentials, needed in a serious 
arctic journey, no matter what the season, the temperature, or 
the duration of the journey — whether one month or six — are 



THE FOOD TETHER 9 

four : pemmican, tea, ship's biscuit, condensed milk. Pemmi- 
can is a prepared and condensed food, made from beef, fat, 
and dried fruits. It may be regarded as the most concentrated 
and satisfying of all meat foods. 

With these essentials Peary packed his sledges to 
support their crew of men and dogs for the fifty days' 
dash for the pole. The bottom layer was of dog 
pemmican in red tins, covering the entire length and 
width of the sledge ; then came two layers of biscuit 
and of crew pemmican in blue tins • then the con- 
densed milk. 

The standard daily ration for work on the final sledge jour- 
ney towards the pole was one pound of pemmican, one pound 
of ship's biscuit, four ounces of condensed milk, one-half 
ounce of compressed tea, and six ounces of liquid fuel (alcohol 
or petroleum). 

This made a total of two pounds, four and a half 
ounces of solids per man per day. ''On this ration," 
adds Peary, "a man can work hard and keep in good 
condition in the lowest temperatures for a very long 
time. I believe that no other item of food, either for 
heat or muscle building, is needed." 

An army can advance from its base of supplies 
only so far as food can be brought to it. Long 
ago Napoleon said, "An army travels on its stomach." 
A friend of mine, who was in Italy as a Red Cross 
worker at the time of the Austrian surrender, fed 
in the mountain passes Austrian soldiers who had had 
no food for five days. No army so poorly provisioned 



lO FOOD AND LIFE 

could hold out. Germany did not believe any army 
could operate three thousand miles from its base of 
supplies. Read the army ration of the American sol- 
dier in France, the best-fed soldier in the world, and 
you will see that the despised Yankee taught even the 
scientific German a lesson in food supply. Compare 
it with Peary's emergency ration for his fateful fifty 
days' dash. The total is over four and a half pounds 
as against Peary's two and a quarter pounds. 

The garrison ration of the American soldier was 
one and a quarter pounds of fresh beef, one and an 
eighth pounds of flour, one and a quarter pounds 
of potatoes, and beans, prunes, coffee, sugar, milk, 
vinegar, salt, pepper, lard, butter, sirup, and baking 
powder in varying amounts, making a total of about 
four and a half pounds. Parallel with this list are 
many substitutes for each article of food. Flour, for 
instance, is not served by the pound as the grocer 
would hand it over the counter. That would hardly 
help the soldier in his food problem. The flour part 
of the ration appears in bread, hominy, corn meal, 
crackers, and oatmeal. Prunes are varied with apples, 
peaches, pears, pineapple, jam, jelly, and "assorted 
preserves." (The full ration is given on page 164.) 

Later we shall talk more about the body ration 
necessary for continued health and comfort. Now we 
are interested in the ration as a measure of man's 
independence. With this amount of food supplied 
him he could carry on a war anywhere. 



12 



FOOD AND LIFE 



Columbus, Peary, and Pershing had to provide a 
fixed daily allowance, or ration, because they had taken 
their men off the land — Columbus out on the sea, 
Peary over the ice, and Pershing into camps or out 
across No Man's Land, where they could do nothing 




U. S. Official 



FOOD FOR A DESERT JOURNEY 



to supply themselves with food. Belgium had to be 
put on rations because its land was laid waste or was 
in the hands of the enemy. England went on rations 
because the land area for food cultivation of the British 
Isles is not sufficient for the feeding of her population. 
She depends always on food brought from overseas. 
Before the war it used to be said that she kept three 
weeks ahead of her needs in provisions. With sub- 
marines sinking the incoming food in mid-ocean, she 
had to put her people on limited rations. China suffers 



THE FOOD TETHER 



13 



from famine when the floods cover the rice fields. 
Whenever people are cut off from the land where 
their food is raised,. the tether pulls them back. 

It has been good for man to be pulled up short in 
this way. Otherwise he might have become a careless, 
idle, roaming creature. It is good for you that you 
must report three times a day at table. Many a time 
you go out saying " I will be back in time for supper " 
or " for dinner." As the farmer is held to the land 
which he tills, so all of us are blessedly held to our 
homes and our work by our need for food. 

QUESTIONS 

How is man tied to the land ? 

How has he lengthened his tether ? 

Why must any people ever be put on rations ? 




CHAPTER III 

IN BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF 

Mr. Smith was a candy manufacturer. His son John 
wanted to go into the business, and Mr. Smith wanted 
to take him into it. But he wanted John to learn the 
candy business before he became his partner. So he 
said to John : " How would it be for me to set you up 
in business for yourself ? I will give you a little factory 
for your own. I will put in the machinery and buy the 
supplies to start you. Then you can go ahead and 
manage it." John wanted the factory. He was eager 
for the chance. But he did not think that he knew 
enough about the actual making of the candy to risk it. 
Mr. Smith saw that John was right. " I will do more," 
he said. " I will give you one of my best foremen. 
He knows all about the process of making candy. 
He will attend to that for you, and your mind will be 
left free for the other parts of the business." 

Nature did the same thing for you that Mr. Smith 
did for his son. She set you up in business for your- 
self. She gave you the most w^onderful machine in 
the world — your body. It belongs to you and to no 
one else. You are in full charge. But Nature did not 
go away and leave you the whole business of manag- 
ing it. If you had consciously to manage and direct the 



IN BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF 



15 



various activities that are going on all the time within 
your body, you would have no time or thought for 
anything else. You would be nearly distracted send- 
ing your thoughts here and there to see that your 
heart kept beating, and your lungs kept breathing, 
and your blood kept moving, and your whole body 
kept growing. Attending to the food business alone 
would drive you crazy, for it goes on night and day, 
Sundays and holidays. 

Nature wished your thinking self to be free for 
other things than the running of your body. So, like 
Mr. Smith, she gave you a foreman. This foreman is 
your Other Self ; it is really You, for it is part of You, 
but so, for that matter, is your body You. It is not, 
however, the thinking, attending, conscious You. It is 
a Body Self which knows how to run the mechanical 
processes of your body, and which attends to them 
whether you are paying attention or not. 

We stopped in the middle of Mr. Smith's talk with 
his son. Mr. Smith was willing to provide John wath a 
foreman, but said: "If you are to be a successful candy 
manufacturer, you must know every step of the proc- 
ess of candy-making. You must watch the foreman 
and each worker, and question them until you know 
exactly what takes place in each room of the factory. 
You must know not only the raw products (sugar, 
milk, water, flavoring) and the finished products (candy 
in pound and five-pound boxes) but also how they are 
mixed, heated, cooled, molded, and packed. No man 



1 6 FOOD AND LIFE 

is fit to be at the head of a business who does not 
have every detail of that business clearly in his mind. 
He will make mistakes in buying his materials, selling 
his products, or handling his employees." 

It was not hard for John to learn the business. He 
could go and ask his foreman questions. If man's 
Body Self had been able to talk, science would have 
been saved thousands of experiments. But though the 
Body Self attended to its business and did it well, 
it kept so quiet about it that the endless curiosity of 
man down all the centuries hardly suf^ced to find out 
how the food business inside his own body was run. 

People had such strange ideas. Philosophers used to 
sit down and try to imagine what could be happening 
to this food which they ate. Each day they ate it, and 
it disappeared. The body into which it was dropped 
took it in but did not increase in weight. No other 
vessel could have a thousand or fifteen hundred pounds 
of matter dropped into it in a year and, except for some 
waste, give no sign of what became of it. In some way 
it kept the body alive, but how they could not imagine. 

Then came a brilliant group of men who made the 
body tell some of its secrets. One discovered the circula- 
tion of the blood, the river of life flowing into every part 
of the body. Two others discovered oxygen, that ele- 
ment in the air which combining with other substances 
" makes them burn." Year after year secrets were un- 
covered until now you and I can almost hear our Body 
Selves talk if we let the scientists act as interpreters. 



IN BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF 



17 



Suppose this Body Self did talk. It might like to 
tell you, as its chief, some things. Foremen are always 
going to their chiefs with requests and suggestions. 
It might even begin by complaining. It might say 
to you: 

" Do you realize the work you are making me do ? 
I must keep your heart beating ; that alone is as much 




THE NOON LUNCH AT AN OPEN-AIR SCHOOL 
Food furnishes heat-energy to keep these children warm 

work in a single day as it would be to lift a man twenty- 
five hundred feet into the air. I must keep your chest 
moving. I must keep your body w^arm. All these things 
I must do, and then I must be ready to supply energy 
for everything you do. If you kept still I should even 
then have work enough to do, but you walk and run, 
you dig in the garden. Sometimes it seems to me as 
if you were never still a minute." 



l8 FOOD AND LIFE 

You do work your foreman hard. You expect a 
great deal of your body ; you are always calling on it 
for energy. This you may do because you supply it 
with food. Your foreman will not complain if you give 
him the materials he needs. He will not waste them ; 
he will even save and store some of them. But he must 
have them if he is to supply you with the energy you 
need, first, to keep your body machinery running and, 
next, to do the work you want to do. This energy your 
foreman would measure in terms of heat, for heat is a 
form of energy, and it is heat-energy which keeps your 
body going. 

Paracelsus, a Swiss physician who was born the 
year after Columbus discovered America, thought 
there really was a spirit that lived in the stomach and 
separated the food, the good from the bad. If there 
were such a spirit living in the stomach, he would not 
be separating good from bad. First of all he would be 
testing your food to see how much heat-energy there 
was stored in it. Each tiny cell in the body is a little 
furnace. The foodstuff which comes to it from your 
eating is the " coal " ; the oxygen which comes to it 
through the lungs from your breathing '' makes it burn." 
When coal burns in a stove, carbon in the coal is uniting 
with oxygen of the air, and as a result energy is given 
off in the form of heat. Shut off the oxygen, the draft 
of air, in a stove and the coal will not burn. Let in air 
through a wide-open draft without putting in much 
coal and the fire will burn out. The oxygen from your 



IN BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF 1 9 

lungs is ready to meet in the cells the food liquid from 
your stomach and " burn " in each of a million cells. 
Then from each of these cells will come the heat-energy 
which is needed not only to keep your heart beating 
but to enable you to run and jump and play and work. 

This Paracelsus-spirit, sitting in your stomach and 
watching the food as it came down from your mouth, 
would have for one of his instruments a food thermom- 
eter. It would not be quite like our thermometers. 
They test temperature by seeing how high a thread 
of mercury rises. This spirit in the stomach would be 
testing to see how much heat could be gotten out of 
each bit of food when it met oxygen in the cells. 

When the scientist found out that one of the 
chief things the body wanted from food was possible 
heat-energy, he began to test every kind of food for 
heat-energy. He had it meet oxygen in his tube as it 
would meet oxygen in the cell. He found that each 
food responded by giving out a particular amount of 
heat. So he said to himself : " I will make a food ther- 
mometer and measure the food before I put it into the 
body. Then I shall know how much heat it will give 
out in the body." He called his food thermometer by 
the less familiar name of caioritnefer, but the two words 
really mean the same, each being a " heat-measure " — 
Ikermomeie^r from the Greek word for heat, ^^/(Crimeter 
from the Latin word for heat. 

That was a great day when men found out how to 
measure food as if it were fuel. After that they could 



20 



FOOD AND LIFE 



find out how much fuel the body needed. When they 
had done that, and learned some other facts, explorers 
and aviators could plan their emergency rations, the 
army could select intelligently its fighting ration, and 
you and I could run our food business properly, giving 
our bodies the materials they need. 

QUESTIONS 

How did Nature set you up in business ? 
What becomes of much of the food we eat ? 

In what sense may we call the body an engine ? What does it do 
for us ? 

For what does the body test the food we give to it ? 




CHAPTER IV 

FOOD AS FUEL 

It is one thing to drop food into a mysterious cavity- 
like the leather bag of Jack the Giant Killer; it is 
quite another to supply fuel for a furnace from which 
a known amount of heat is required. Jack's only con- 
cern was that the giant should see a certain amount 
of food disappear. He could throw in all kinds, hit 
or miss, the faster the better. Sometimes we are in 
danger of treating our bodies as if they were Jack's 
leather bag. Then we do well to remind ourselves that 
they are furnaces or engines, with food as their fuel. 
They can be misused more than most furnaces with- 
out getting out of order, but even their fires will finally 
run low if not fed properly or if choked. 

We know how much heat we require from the body 
furnace. Many thousands of tests have established that, 
until it is a matter of arithmetic like the price of beef 
or eggs. Do a certain piece of work and you use up a 
certain number of calories of heat. The calorie is the 
unit of heat as it is measured by the food thermometer, 
or calorimeter. Get up from the chair in which you 
are now sitting, walk eight feet, turn, walk back, and 
sit down "again ; you will have used about one calorie 



2 2 FOOD AND LIFE 

of heat more than if you had kept still. A certain 
number of calories to keep the body going, a smaller 
number in addition for our voluntary acts like walk- 
ing, stretching, eating, running, and playing, — such is 
the requirement for fuel for our body furnace. Every 
muscle movement that we make uses a certain amount 
of heat-energy. Boys and girls use up more calories 
in proportion to their weight than men and women. 
That is partly because they are growing so fast, partly 
because they are more active. Here is a table ^ by which 
you can find out for yourself the number of calories of 
heat-energy which you require from your body in a day. 



Age 


Number of Calories per Day 


Under i year 


45 calories per pound 


1-2 years 


45-40 calories per pound 


2-5 years 


40-36 calories per pound 


6-g years 


36-32 calories per pound 


10-13 years 


34-27 calories per pound 


14-17 years 


30-22 calories per pound 



To figure out what you require, find your place in 
the table by age and multiply your weight in pounds 
by the number of calories opposite your age. Since 
two numbers are given in the calorie list, multiply first 
by the first number given, then by the second ; some- 
where between these two results lies your average 
daily requirement. Suppose you are ten years old 
and weigh 60 pounds. In the table, for children from 

^ From H. C. Sherman's "Chemistry of Food and Nutrition," 1918. 




TAKING THE WEEKLY WEIGHT RECORD 



24 



FOOD AND LIFE 



ten to thirteen years of age the number of calories is 
from 34 to 27. Multiplying 34 by 60 we get 2040; 
multiplying 27 by 60 we get 1620. According to how 
fast you are growing and how lively you are, you are 
asking your body to furnish from 1600 to 2000 calories 
of heat a day. The average for a man of ordinary 
habits of life is from 2500 to 3000 calories a day. An 
active farmer uses about 3500, a Maine lumberman at 
the height of the working season, 5800. A baby, weigh- 
ing only a few pounds, uses more heat-energy or does 
more " work " in proportion to its weight than anyone 
except a very hard-working laborer. 

To run your food business properly on the fuel side, 
you must keep a sort of balance sheet, putting in as 
much heat in fuel as you take out in energy. When 
your father is to leave the furnace fire for the day, or 
when he orders coal for the winter, he does not regulate 
the amount of coal by guesswork or any haphazard 
process. He knows by experience about how much 
coal it takes to keep the fire going at the proper rate 
all day or all winter, and he supplies that amount. 
When he goes on a long trip in his automobile, he 
does not start out blindly, hoping that the gasoline in 
his tank will keep the engine going and the wheels 
turning to cover the number of miles of his trip. He 
balances gallons of gasoline against engine output or, 
in this case, against miles covered by a given engine 
output. If the two balance he may, barring accidents, 
depend on his engine to do the work required. 



FOOD AS FUEL 



25 



The output oi the body is too varied to be measured 
in miles ; the food fuel cannot be measured in quarts. 
Both can, however, be measured in these calories, these 
heat-units. This makes possible a rough figuring of a 
balance sheet. Two drops of fat contribute a calorie 




Women's Municipal League, Boston 
100-CALORIE PORTIONS 



See also list, page 170 

of heat. Three lumps of sugar furnish extra energy 
enough for walking a mile. Two slices of bread, or a 
large boiled egg, or a little over half a cup of milk, or a 
medium-sized ripe banana — each of these furnishes 
one hundred calories. The cook or the purchaser of 
raw or cooked food can easily learn to estimate the fuel 
value of every food. So interested have people become 



26 



FOOD AND LIFE 



in this food-test that many restaurants have added 
a new column to their menu, giving not only the 
food and its price but also the number of calories in 
the portion served. 

To most of us eating by calories would be tiresome. 
We are not mere mechanical machines. We prefer to 
think of our food as appetizing and hunger-satisfying ; 
we should weary of thinking of it as energy-producing. 
Yet, when all is said and done, that Body Self of ours 
will still be checking off what we eat with the food 
thermometer. To keep the Body Self well supplied is 
one of our first duties. 




CHAPTER V 

FOOD AS FUEL (Continued) 

The fuel value of a food depends largely on the heat 
that has gone into its composition. It is the old story 
that you can take out of a thing only what has been 
put into it. 

Nature is man's first and chief cook. With the 
heat from her great stove, the sun, she combines or 
" cooks " in the tiny mixing pots of plants, the cells, 
the ingredients which go to make up our food. This 
food has fuel value according to the amount of heat 
which has been taken up by it in the process of 
" cooking." 

Practically all that we eat is either plant food or 
animal food, either vegetables, grains, and cereals or 
meat, fish, eggs, and milk. All foods have some fuel 
value ; some have far more heat-energy stored up in 
them than others. The fuel value in calories of all 
common foods has been calculated and can be found 
in government lists. Let us see if we can tell why 
some of the plant and animal foods furnish more 
heat energy than others. 

Let us go back to the Long Ago and suppose a time 

when plants and animals were almost alike. This 

27 



28 FOOD AND LIFE 

sounds like the beginning of a fairy story, but there 
really are some plants that are so like animals, and 
some tiny animals that are so like plants, that it takes 
a microscope and a learned scientist to name one a 
plant and the other an animal. There were a good 
many of these living structures made up of tiny cells, 
and some were going to be animals and some were 
going to be plants. All of them got their energy from 
the sun. After the world was started, it had to have 
some great store of energy to keep it going, and that 
source of energy is the sun. The sun is giving its 
energy out freely. It comes in a steady stream to 
plants and animals alike. Its coming is like money 
pouring in on a person. The question is, What will he 
do with it? He must choose to do one of two things, 
either spend it or keep it to pass on to his children. 
In the fairy story of Long Ago that I am telling you, 
suppose that some of these living groups of cells had 
the question put to them as to what they were going 
to do with this sun-energy which came to them in 
sun-heat and sun-light. Whether they were asked the 
question or not, we know what they did. 

Plants said, " We will keep this energy, storing it 
for our children and for our own use in the days when 
the sun does not send us its light and heat." Animals 
said, " We will keep just enough energy to be safe to 
live on for a short time, but the rest we will spend in 
free movement as fast as it comes to us." So it hap- 
pened, and the story ends, as all fairy stories should, 







\Ve are Aiiiinnls 
Wo Spend 
/ We Move 



We are Plants 

We Save 
We Sray Still 




THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 



30 FOOD AND LIFE 

with " they Hved happy ever after." But the plants had 
chosen to stay still, and they have stayed still to this 
day, each one living in its appointed place for its life- 
time. The animals had chosen to spend their energy 
in movement, and they have moved here, there, and 
everywhere, all over the earth. That is one difference, 
the big difference, between the Animal Kingdom and 
the Vegetable Kingdom. 

The plants, which are tied to one place, reach out 
into the air around them and down into the earth be- 
neath them to get the ingredients for their food. With 
the sun-heat and the sun-light they cook it in their 
tiny mixing pots, the cells. When it is first cooked it 
has a great deal of water mixed in with it, and water 
has no fuel value. But then the plants begin to provide 
for their seed children, for whom they are saving this 
" money " that the sun lavishes on them. They begin 
to pack away this wealth of energy for them, and 
wherever you and I can find it packed away, there we 
shall find a food with heat in it, a food of good fuel 
value. 

The potato is one such food. It is a storeroom with 
plenty of starch put away for the sprouts (which are 
to come from the eyes of the potato) to live on until 
they are big enough to get energy from the sun for 
themselves. All kinds of seeds and bulbs which 
are good to eat have high fuel value, for around the 
germ of life the plant always packs a good supply of 
starch. That is why beans and peas, grains, cereals 



FOOD AS FUEL 



31 



(wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, and all their products 
in bread, crackers, and breakfast foods), are good 
fuel foods. They are rich in starch, which is the 
product into which the sun-energy has transformed 
their ingredients. 

Sugars are another kind of product into which sun- 
energy cooks the ingredients which plants draw from 
the air and from the earth. We get our cane sugar 
from the watery juice of the sugar cane. From this we 
drive out the water until we have the only perfect un- 
mixed fuel food, our white sugar. Test sugar by the 
food thermometer and it will get a very high mark. 
Fruit-plants store energy in the sugar which is packed 
around the seed of the fruit. If fruits did not have so 
much water in them they would rank higher as fuel 
foods. Dried fruits, such as prunes, figs, and raisins, 
go high on the list for their sugar fuel. 

Stored plant-food is not the only human fuel. It is 
the most abundant and the least expensive, but except 
in the case of our prepared table sugar it is not the 
most concentrated fuel. " Fats are fuel for fighters," 
said the government war poster which was displayed 
all over the country in the autumn and winter of 191 7. 
We get our fats from animal foods — bacon, meat, 
cheese, cream, milk, butter, and lard — and from a few 
vegetable foods — olive oil, coconut oil, corn oils, and 
cottonseed oils. Animals eat plants and get the fuel- 
energy which is stored in this food. Then they, in 
their turn, store it. You remember that they chose to 



32 FOOD AND LIFE 

spend most of the energy the sun gave them in move- 
ment, but to save some as a reserve. This reserve they 
store in fats and oils. Weight for weight, fats have 
more than twice as much fuel value as sugars and 
starches. That was why Uncle Sam wanted fats for 
his " fighters." Fats took less than half the room that 
the other fuel foods would have taken and space was 
precious on government ships. 

The way to recognize a fuel food when you have no 
list at hand is to think whether before you bought it 
as a food it was stored by its plant or animal as a 
reserve. If it was, you will get the benefit of the 
energy stored in it. When you eat honey you are eat- 
ing the sugar which the bees put away in the comb as 
we might put money in the bank. Because they store 
it so fast they can spare some of it for us and still be 
well provided for winter. 

The way to buy fuel food is to get some of the less 
expensive energy-foods, such as potatoes and cereals 
and milk, and some of the more expensive, such as 
meats and fats. Always when you eat bread and butter 
you are laying in " coal " for your " furnaces." 

The way to keep your furnaces from getting choked 
is to see that you do not eat too much fuel food, which 
would be almost as bad as too little. The danger of 
too much sugar or too much candy is that if it is piled 
on foods or shoveled in after foods which are already 
rich in fuel, it may so choke the furnaces as to keep 
them from burning well. To overload a furnace so 



FOOD AS FUEL 



33 



that it cannot burn well is to waste fuel and decrease 
the resulting heat-energy which a reasonable supply 
of fuel would give. 

QUESTIONS 

How many calories of heat do you use in a day ? 
What is the fuel which gives this heat ? 
How does Nature put heat-energy into food ? 
What do plants do with their energy ? 
What do animals do with their energy ? 

Where shall we find stored energy-food in plants ? Where in 
animals ? 

How shall we recognize fuel food ? 

How shall we buy fuel food ? 

Why should we be careful not to eat too much fuel food ? 



r-f,-. 




4- 



FATS 

Eggs Oil Lard Cream Peanuts 

Nuts Oleomargarine Butter Cheese 

These foods, grouped in the picture at the top 
of the opposite page, are rich in fat, as are also 
bacon, fat meat, chocolate, and many cooked foods. 
As bread is spread with butter, many foods are 
cooked with fat to make them more appetizing. 

SUGARS 

Sirup Apples Sugar Oranges 

Molasses Banana Honey Prunes Raisins 

A large orange may contain two tablespoonfuls 
of sugar. Look at the foods grouped in the pic- 
ture and see how many sources of sweets there 
are in our diet. Fresh fruits and dried fruits 
contain a generous amount of sugar combined 
with other substances which make for health. 

STARCHES 

Bread Potatoes Macaroni 

Oatmeal Rice Graham Flour 

Hominy Corn Meal White Flour Shredded Wheat 

Bread and the many other cereal foods sug- 
gested by the contents of these plates make up 
an important part of our food. They give bulk ; 
they supply fuel ; they are easy to obtain and not 
expensive; they are plain foods without much 
flavor. We can eat them without tiring of them. 

FUEL foods 




.^^ 



■^ 



=_-^ 








L„ 




FUEL FOODS 



CHAPTER VI 
OUR DAILY BREAD 

When in the prayer we use the words " Give us this 
day our daily bread," we are asking for just what we 
need and all we can take. Man lives on a daily-ration 
plan. Our bodies are so built that they can take care 
of and use during one day the food for that day. This 
amount they can handle well ; from it they can get 
good results. More than a day's ration taken in a 
day overcrowds our bodies. They can store a little, 
but the rest goes to waste. 

Man's life must be run on the daily-ration plan 
because he is so free in spending his energy in move- 
ment and activity. Physically he is at the head of the 
Animal Kingdom, and animals belong to the adven- 
turous group which chose to spend energy rather than 
to store it. It is a glorious group ! Every one of us 
would make the same choice if we had to make it 
to-day. The need of providing three good meals a day 
is a small price to pay for the freedom of movement 
which we enjoy. Man does not even store up enough 
energy to take a long winter sleep, as some of the 
animals do. He is willing to put food into his "bank 
account " every day if by so doing he may be able to 
draw on that account freely. 

36 



OUR DAILY BREAD 37 

We have seen how closely the fuel intake and the 
energy output balance. They do not balance exactly. 
Prudently taking thought for the morrow, the Body 
Self does try to store up a tiny reserve which shows 
itself to us in the form of extra weight and bulk. We 
differ in the amount of reserve stored in our bodies. 
A little fat is a good thing. It allows us to draw on 
the body bank in sudden emergencies without danger 
to our health. The body must have food to keep itself 
going. If for some reason we do not give it this food, 
it will turn cannibal and eat itself, burning itself up to 
keep the fires going. Sometimes a man tries to see 
how long he can go without food. He may be able to 
fast forty days, but to fast for that length of time he 
must give up the privilege of moving about freely 
and using up his energy. He must also be willing to 
come out at the end of the time with a poor, weakened 
body, for in denying it food he has forced his body to 
live on itself. Only on the daily-ration plan can we 
enjoy our usual active lives. 

On the daily-ration plan a man needs foods which 
fall into two groups, — fuel foods, of which we have 
been speaking, and life foods, of which we are going 
to speak. Fuel foods he needs because his body is a 
machine, taking in fuel and giving out energy. Life 
foods he needs because his body is a living machine. 

All the fuel in the world will do no good if the 
furnace or engine is out of order or unequal to the 
demands on it. If the body were only a machine, and 



38 FOOD AND LIFE 

not a living machine, you would never have grown 
an inch beyond the size you were as a baby in your 
mother's arms. You could not get much energy out 
of a machine of that size. But you would not have 
lived very long, or if you had lived you would have 
spent much of your time in some sort of repair shop. 
In Chapter IV you read about the heat-energy the 
body had to produce daily. The wear and tear on the 
parts of a machine working at such a tremendous rate 
is more than iron or steel could ever stand. Your body 
can stand it because it is a living machine. Because 
your body is alive, it can build itself, so that you grow 
from a baby to a full-sized man or woman. Because it 
is alive, it is its own repair shop. It can renew itself 
when parts wear out, as they constantly do. It can 
repair itself when parts need repair. It can oil itself 
and keep itself running smoothly, so that all the parts 
work silently and well together, without creaking or 
squeaking or rubbing as the parts of an engine would 
if they were not oiled. But like any other builder, it 
cannot build unless it has something to build with. 
It must have materials. It must have what we are 
choosing to call "life foods." We might almost have 
called them " body foods," for they are the foods out of 
which the body builds and rebuilds itself. They are 
the foods which do not burn up in the body, but which 
stay and finally become part of the body itself. 

When Nature is preparing foods she does not put 
them up in neat packages, as breakfast foods are put 



40 FOOD AND LIFE 

up, sealing them and labeling them "Fuel Food," 
"Life Food No. i," "Life Food No. 2," etc. Nature is 
not running a grocery store or even a medicine counter. 
She is running a food shop, and like a good cook she 
mixes all the needed kinds of material into appetizing 
dishes. Into some she puts more fuel foods : that is when 
food is being stored away by the plant or animal. Into 
others she puts more life foods : that is in the parts 
of plants or animals where there is the most life and 
growth. The way to be sure to get a good daily ration 
of both fuel foods and life foods is to eat a good varied 
diet. Some dishes will furnish more of one kind and 
others more of another; all together, if the meals are 
well planned, they will give to the body not only what 
will supply energy but what will also keep the machine 
at its best. 

Preparing foods for eating is a matter of putting dif- 
ferent elements together. Eating foods is a matter of 
taking them apart. Nature and man mix them. The 
minute they get inside the mouth the taking apart 
process begins. In the mouth the food is turned, as far 
as possible, into a liquid. Even here there is a little 
agent that is looking out for a special kind of food. 
This food it takes apart, splitting it up into less com- 
plex elements. In the stomach and all through the 
digestive tract there are more agents, each looking for 
its own kinds of food. They are stationed at intervals, 
like watchmen, so that if any life food gets by one 
which ought to split it up, it will have to pass another 



OUR DAILY BREAD 4 1 

and still another. The end and aim of all this splitting 
apart of foods is that they shall go to the cells in a 
form in which they can be used. A tiny cell could not 
use the mixture of fuel and life foods in a piece of 
bread as we take it into the mouth. When these foods 
have been split up into the simple parts or groups, the 
resulting liquid can be taken by the cell and burned as 
fuel or used as building material. 

Just as a cook makes a great many dishes out of a 
few things like flour and eggs and butter, so Nature 
makes everything in the world out of a very few 
elements. For living plants and animals she has four 
main elements of which she uses considerable portions, 
and a dozen or more other elements of which she uses 
a bit here and there. When each food has been split up 
in the digestive tract, it has furnished the amount of 
each element that was in it. WHiat the body needs for 
fuel it will burn. It will burn more than is desirable 
of the incoming life foods if it is running short of fuel. 
If there is a little extra fuel it may store part of it. 
What it needs of building materials it will either use 
at once or dispose of as waste. Fuel materials it can 
store ; most of the life foods cannot be stored for more 
than a single day. They must be new every morning 
and fresh every evening. 

As fuel foods are heavy and bulky to carry around 
with us, we shall be more comfortable if we eat of fuel 
foods only about the daily ration of the body. (There- 
fore, not too many sweets !) As life foods are very 



42 



FOOD AND LIFE 



expensive, and it takes a certain amount of energy for 
the body to get any excess of them out of the system 
after we have put them in, it will pay us to find out 
just about what our daily ration is and neither over-eat 
nor under-eat. (Certainly, not too much meat !) Then 
and then only shall we be running our food business 
well on the daily-ration plan which is marked out for 
us by Nature. 

QUESTIONS 

What in man's way of living puts him on the daily-ration plan ? 
If you were asked to choose to-day, would you choose to pay this 
price for your freedom ? 

What can the body do for itself because it is a living machine ? 

What kinds of food must it have to keep in running order ? 

Why should we eat a varied and balanced diet ? 

What happens to our food as soon as we have eaten it ? 

Why should we not eat too much candy ? 

Why should we avoid too much meat ? 




CHAPTER VII 
THE MAGIC TOUCH 

If, instead of mixing and baking a cake, your mothers 
put out on the table exactly the ingredients which go 
to the making of that cake, you would not want to eat 
them. Yet there would be just as much food value in 
the cup of flour and the eggs and the milk and butter 
and other ingredients as there will be in the cake 
when it is made. 

If Nature spread out before you the elements of 
which she makes foods, — carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, 
and hydrogen, iron, phosphorus, sulphur, and the 
rest, — they would not do you any good so far as 
eating is concerned. Yet they would all be there, as 
all the materials for the cake were on the table before 
you. Plants could take them and eat them. That is 
what plants can do that animals cannot do. They reach 
out in the air for some elements and down into the 
ground for others, and finding them in combinations 
take them and make use of them. 

We have seen how heat is as necessary for Nature's 
foods as for the dishes we prepare from them for the 
table ; but even cooking is not all that is needed to 
turn elements — gases and minerals — into the prod- 
ucts we eat as foods. They must receive the magic 

43 



44 



FOOD AND LIFE 



touch of life. Till they have had that they are common 
elements ; when they have had it they are fit foods for 
a living body. Everything we eat (excepting always 
the water we drink) has passed once, twice, sometimes 
thrice under this magic touch. 

Wise men have searched in vain for that within a 
living body which gives it its life. When I was a child 
I had for a plaything a Japanese wooden egg which 
came apart in the middle. When the colorless outer 
shell was opened, there lay inside it a smaller egg gayly 
striped in reds and blues. That too would open. In- 
side it was another, and another, and still another, until 
within the tenth shell there lay a tiny egg that would 
not open. Searching within a living body for that 
which keeps it alive is very much like opening my 
play-nest of eggs. We may strip off one layer after 
another, peering intently into each to find the life in it. 
Each time there is a smaller living body within. Finally 
we come to the last, the tiniest of all. This is a living cell 
filled with a thick liquid. Here we are halted. We may 
look at this cell with our strong glasses ; we may test 
it to see what it is made of; but we cannot find out 
how it differs from the cell which we could put together 
from the same materials. Only we know that in some 
way it has received the magic touch of life, which has 
turned it from a mixture of gases and minerals into 
a living cell. 

This much we do find in our search for life, that 
wherever life is, whether in plant or animal, there is to 



THE MAGIC TOUCH 45 

be found the same kind of fluid. This fluid is evidently 
Nature's Hfe mixture. It is this fluid that receives the 
magic touch. When we find it we are next to Hfe. 
Since the body is made up of cells full of this fluid, 
and the body is rebuilding itself, the best we can do 
in the way of supplying it with life foods is to give 
it foods which have a great deal of this life-stuff. 
All foods which have been alive have a little of this 
mixture. The nearer we come to the living part 
of a plant or animal, the richer the food is in this 
life-stuff. 

There is no need for you to learn the lists of these 
life foods. It will be time enough for that when you 
are studying physiology, which tells you more about 
how the body works, or domestic science, which tells 
you about the foods you are cooking and what they do. 
Here we will group the life foods for you, so that you 
will know what they are when you see them referred 
to in food lists and in other books. 

Meat and fish and living parts of vegetables we eat 
chiefly for the mixture of chemicals which make up 
that thick fluid we have just spoken of, which is always 
found next to life. All tissue that has been very much 
alive has it. Every seed has a tiny layer or shell of it, 
like the egg of the play-nest which was next to the in- 
nermost egg, that would not open. This, which is the 
chief class of life foods, is called the protein group of 
foods. In this class are placed all the parts of the food 
that go to make up this actual life-stuff. 



46 FOOD AND LIFE 

When I tell you where the word protehi came 
from, you will see why these foods are called by this 
name. Greek and Latin are the languages of science. 
That is because they are the old languages, which 
the scientist, whether he speaks English or French or 
German or Italian or Swedish or any other modern 
language, knows. So that is where we get our science 
names. Calorimeter came from the Latin word for 
heat, you remember, as thermometer came from the 
Greek word for heat. Protos is the Greek word for 
" first." So the fluid that comes next to life itself the 
scientist called protoplasm, or " first form," and the 
group of chemicals which together make up that pro- 
toplasm he named proteins, or "first things." When 
you hear people talking about " proteins," or about 
how much " protein " a food has in it, you will re- 
member that all they mean is "first foods," — foods 
which come right next to life, made up of that stuff 
to which Nature gives the magic touch of life. 

Proteins are not all alike. Nature does not make 
all her living creation on one pattern or by one recipe. 
" All flesh is not the same flesh," reads a verse in the 
Bible ; " but there is one kind of flesh of men, another 
of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." The 
list might go on indefinitely, with the flesh of green 
leaves, and of plant seeds, and of milk, and of eggs, 
and so forth. All these proteins are good for us ; all 
do some special work in our bodies. The way to get 
enough of protein, and enough of all the proteins you 



THE MAGIC TOUCH 



47 



need, is to eat a good variety of meat and fish and 
vegetables, with milk and eggs. 

Because meat has been so lately living flesh, people 
used to think that to get protein into our bodies we must 
eat a great deal of meat. Now they know that there is 



— ^ 


11^ 


■W ■' ■: - 






.- , „ - ' 'n\}4^ 





THE DAIRY COW 
The best food producer in the world 

protein in all life tissues. Milk must have a great deal 
of it, for from the mother's milk the calf must get its 
life-building food to make its body machine grow and 
to renew and repair its tissues. The cow eats a great 
deal of plant life, every living tissue of which has pro- 
teins. These her body works over and gives out in milk, 
which is therefore a good life food. Eggs must have a 



48 



FOOD AND LIFE 



great deal of it, else how could the tiny bit of life in 
the center of the egg grow and become a little chick ? 
Eggs have fuel food stored in them, too, else how could 
the growing chick have energy to break its way out of 
the shell ? Milk and eggs are the best all-round foods, 
because in them are stored all that the young animal 
needs for the first few days or weeks of its life. When 
we eat them we are getting the benefit of carefully 

prepared life foods. 

Two other life foods 
have been lately recog- 
nized by the scientists 
\vhich they do not even 
know enough about to 
name, except to call 
them " life foods " or 
vitamincs, from the 
Latin word vita, "life." 
They too come in foods which have been actively alive 
— in the green leaves of vegetables, in milk, in butter, 
in the fat of living organs of animals, in fruits, and in 
meats. They are absent from the stored products of 
plant life, the stored fats, the closely packed sugars, 
the starch supplies of the cereals and grains. Without 
them our bodies do not grow or work properly. 

Then there are the minerals. It does not occur to 
you when you drink milk that you are drinking calcium, 
or lime. Yet you are doing so, and that lime, like a 
good many other minerals you take in your food, is 




THE MAGIC TOUCH 49 

very necessary for your living body machine. The min- 
eral parts of your food — and all healthy diets must 
have them — act in a hundred ways to keep the body 
machine working smoothly, as grease and oil lubri- 
cate the parts of a machine, and also to build up living 
tissue. One mineral helps to build teeth. Every living 
cell must have certain of these minerals, such as phos- 
phorus. So we may put them in the group of life 
foods, or body foods, which are needed because the 
body is a living machine. 

As you learned to know fuel foods as foods which 
the plant or animal laid by as a reserve store, so you 
will know proteins and vitamines and minerals as the 
groups which are found in the most active and living 
parts of plants and animals. Knowing this, you know 
the main facts about the kinds of foods needed for your 
body. Without a cook-book or a food-book or a diet-list 
you can go straight to Nature's storehouse and choose 
for yourself wisely and well from the abundance of 
plant and animal foods which she has provided for you. 

QUESTIONS 

What can plants do in getting food that animals cannot ? 
What must happen to elements before animals can take them as 
food ? 

What do we always find next to life ? 

What are proteins ? 

How are milk and eggs good foods ? 

What two other kinds of life foods besides proteins do we need ? 



PROTEINS 

Cheese Peas Milk Beans Peanuts Dried Beans 
Meat Fish Eggs 

The foods in this group, shown in the picture 
at the top of the opposite page, are rich in the 
different kinds of protein needed for body build- 
ing. Notice that with the animal foods are placed 
peas, beans, and nuts, furnishing vegetable proteins. 

VITAMINES 

Milk Spinach Cauliflower 
Eggs Butter Cabbage Lettuce 

Milk, eggs, butter, and green vegetables are 
called by Dr. McCollum " protective foods " be- 
cause if we eat them in reasonable quantity we 
get the needful amount of certain mysterious sub- 
stances called "vitamines." Animals denied pro- 
tective foods failed to grow and developed disease. 

MINERALS AND WATER 

Milk Spinach Berries Apples Cabbage Lettuce 

Eggs Beets Carrots Cucumber Potatoes 

Whole Wheat Celery 

Our bodies need water, which fruits and vege- 
tables supply in good measure. They need mineral 
matter, contained in vegetables, milk, eggs, and 
in bread made from other than white flour. They 
need a good bulk of food upon which to work, 
and are provided with it by vegetables and fruits. 

life foods 






LIFE FOODS 



IN BUSINESS 

To run the body part of the Food Business well, we must 

Remember 

That the body is a machine, 

taking in food as fuel, 

burning it as it meets oxygen from the air, 

and giving out energy ; 
That as we require from the body energy, 

so we must give the body fuel ; 
That fuel foods are the foods in which heat-energy 

has been stored by plants and animals as a 

reserve ; 
That the body is a living machine, 

building, rebuilding, repairing, and running 

itself; 
That for its life processes it must have life foods, 

which are proteins, vitamines, and mineral 

substances ; 
That we live on a daily-ration plan 

and must therefore supply the body a diet of 

fuel foods and life foods daily. 



CHAPTER VIII 
LIKES AND DISLIKES 

To get the best out of our food we must enjoy it. 
That is common sense, and it is the best science too. 

We might have been so made that we could get the 
proper amount of nourishment into our bodies without 
ever having the pleasure of tasting it. Instead, we who 
stand at the top of the scale of animal life have been 
given a very delicate sense of taste. Set in the lining 
of the mouth and on the tongue are little "taste buds," 
tiny cells with hairy endings, so folded in flesh that 
they look like the closed buds of a plant. Through 
these buds is brought to us the sense of the taste of 
the food we eat. Take them and our sense of smell 
away, and the business of feeding ourselves would be 
like putting food into the cup of a meat chopper. 

Sometimes people have diseases of the mouth and 
throat so that they cannot take food in the usual way. 
They have to be fed through a tube, which pours liquid 
food into the stomach without its ever touching the 
inside of the mouth. We might think that so long as 
the necessary food reached the stomach for distribu- 
tion through the body, one way of getting it in would 
do as well as another. As a matter of fact, this way, 

53 



54 FOOD AND LIFE 

which leaves the mouth out of the process of digestion, 
does not do at all. People may live through an illness 
with this method of feeding. But to get the best from 
their food they must take it through the mouth ; they 
must let the little taste buds feel it and send a mes- 
sage of pleasure up along the nerves to the brain, with 
an accompanying signal to the stomach to prepare 
for it ; they must let the mouth contribute its liquid 
saliva, and the little digestion agents in the mouth 
begin to tear the food apart. Then by the time the food 
reaches the stomach, the stomach is ready for it, ready 
to make the most of it. Putting food in through a 
tube is like pushing a person into the house without 
ringing the doorbell to summon the persons within to 
receive him. He may get in and he may stay in, but 
if they do not want him or are not prepared for him, 
he will not have so pleasant or so satisfying a time as 
he would otherwise. 

It is a small thing the Body Self asks of us, that we 
protect and instruct it by this sense of taste. Taste is 
ready to be a very good servant, but it is often badly 
trained. A mistress is sometimes judged by the man- 
ners of her servants. Anyone who goes frequently 
into the homes of strangers comes to have a distinct 
impression of the lady of the house long before, sum- 
moned by her maid, she has arrived in the reception 
room to greet the newcomer. Sometimes a maid opens 
the door only a few inches, admitting the stranger as 
if only under protest; sometimes she escorts him in 



LIKES AND DISLIKES 55 

and disappears in search of her mistress without taking 
his name or showing any more interest in his arrival 
than as if she were a piece of machinery set to open 
the door in response to a ring at the bell. 

Nature begins the training of our servant, taste ; it 
is for us to continue that training. We find taste very 
convenient and necessary as the watchdog type of 
servant, opening the door hesitatingly to suspicious- 
looking or suspicious-smelling foods which may con- 
tain poisons. We should not like to have it become a 
careless servant, admitting anyone without a moment's 
thought or inquiry. We must take pains, however, to 
train it to be a pleasant and welcoming servant for all 
kinds of good foods, discriminating carefully between 
them and giving to each an individual greeting. 

A great many people do not have their food door 
opened cheerfully. They grumble over their food. 
They eat it when they are so tired that nothing would 
please them. They bolt it down so fast that they do 
not stop to think what it is or what it tastes like. 
Then they blame their bodies for not being ready or 
able to take care of it promptly and easily. Really the 
fault is all their own. 

Along with hunger, which is the call of the body for 
food and is probably connected with actual contrac- 
tions of the stomach, comes appetite, which is closely 
connected with taste and smell and the pleasant 
remembrance or anticipation of food. Hunger, like 
thirst, seems to be general. We hunger for food as 



56 



FOOD AND LIFE 



we thirst for water. Appetite is more discriminating, 
more closely related to our thoughts and feelings. 
The two work so constantly and closely together that 
we need not try to separate them, except to make more 
emphatic in our minds the importance of the pleasure 
element in the taking of food. 

There has long been a remark in common speech 
concerning an attractive food, "It makes my mouth 
water." This remark describes an important physical 
fact. The sight and smell of food for which we feel a 
desire does make the mouth water and the saliva flow. 
It also makes the stomach "water," preparing, as we 
have said, at the signal sent by taste or smell, for 
the reception of the food. It is equally true that any 
strong feeling of distaste, of anger, of weariness, of 
fear, or of pain stops the mouth and the stomach from 
"watering" and keeps the food taken into the body 
from passing in proper fashion on its way. The Body 
Self does not run the food business independently; 
it is very dependent on you. 

A dog, the pet of a great student of food, had what 
was like a window in his stomach, so that the flow of 
the digestion fluids could be watched. When he was 
hungry and was shown food that he liked, the juices 
would begin to flow at once in his stomach, before he 
had taken a single mouthful. Once a cat was brought 
into the room. The dog watched it with great excite- 
ment and anger. When the cat was taken away, 
although the dog went back to the food, the juices 



LIKES AND DISLIKES 



57 



did not begin to flow again for some time. His ex- 
citement and anger were so strong that they had ruled 
out and ruled over the food desires which would make 
for good digestion. . 

Again and again it has been proved with animals 
and children and men and women that for food to do 




A CORDIAL WELCOME 



US the most good we must enjoy it. It is not enough 
to provide for our Body Self the right amount of fuel 
foods and life foods ; we must speak a good word for 
them to the Body Self, welcoming them cordially as 
they come to us. 

There are two ways to go about this very necessary 
matter of enjoying our food. One is to eat what we 



^8 FOOD AND LIFE 

like; the other is to hke what we eat. These two 
statements may sound as if they were one and the 
same thing; sometimes they are, but only to the 
person who has a well-trained taste servant. The body 
must have a certain amount of fuel food ; it must have 
a good variety of life foods. Suppose the taste servant 
lets in gladly only a few kinds of food. Suppose a 
person said : " I know that to have my food do me 
good I must enjoy it. Therefore I am going to eat 
what I like." With that thought he might go to a 
table set with a good mixture of fuel and life foods 
and he might say, "Now which of these foods do I 
like ? " If he had a well-trained servant in his tastes 
and appetites, he would eat a little of everything and 
his body needs would be well met. If he picked all fuel 
foods and few life foods, so that the body had nothing 
to build with, or on the other hand all life foods, so 
that the body must burn them instead of building 
with them, he might have eaten what he liked, but he 
would have been a very poor business manager for his 
food business. He would be abusing his Body Self be- 
cause he had never taken the trouble to train his taste. 
Now a healthy person with a well-trained taste serv- 
ant comes to the same table. He may know a good 
deal about fuel foods and life foods. More likely he 
does not. He knows that food is good and that he is 
hungry. He takes a portion of everything; he tastes 
it with interest ; he eats it with enjoyment. Ask him 
if he likes what he is eating and he will assure you 



LIKES AND DISLIKES 



59 



that he does. He Hkes it because it is good ; he likes 
it also because he intends to like it. When you take 
food or exercise or anything else in that spirit, it does 
you good. Of that person we might say, in the famil- 
iar phrase, "His food will agree with him." Perhaps 
we might better turn the words about and say, " He 
agrees with his food ; therefore it will agree with him." 
Nature starts us with a healthy liking for the foods 
which our bodies need. It is we who make the trouble, 
saying, " I don't like this," or " I never tried that ; I 
don't think I should like it." Only a person who likes 
almost everything can safely let himself eat only what 
he likes. He has a well-trained servant in his tastes. 



QUESTIONS 

What part do our mouths have in the business of eating ? 
In what spirit should we have our food door opened ? 
Why must we enjoy our food ? 
How can we train ourselves to enjoy our food ? 




CHAPTER IX 
A WORLD APPETITE 

Turkey, carp, and carrots, we hear, 
Came into England all in one year. 

Here, in an old English proverb, we have history writ- 
ten not in dates of kings and battles but in terms of 
food and drink. It is a very sensible and democratic 
way of writing history, one that will probably gain in 
favor and importance in the years to come. Certainly 
much of the history of the Great War through which 
we have been passing might be written in terms of 
food. In exactly what year it was that turkey and 
carp and carrots came to England we do not know, 
but it was about 1520, a year famous in the period of 
discovery and exploration. 

We expect to find in our stores and markets food 
from all over the earth. We expect to sit down every 
day to a world table. Only when war upsets the ship- 
ping of the world's food products do we stop to think 
where each article of food on our tables comes from 
and how many people are concerned in bringing our 
sugar from the West Indies, our tea from China, our 
fruits from the southlands, and our spices from the 

islands of the sea. In the olden days, when sailing 

60 



A WORLD APPETITE 



6l 



vessels were venturing out on the first long voyages of 

discovery, kings and queens waited with interest to see 

what new foods their captains would bring home to 

them. The turkey of the proverb had been brought to 

England from Mexico. It is a fact recorded in history 

that turkey was eaten in France for the first time at 

the wedding of Charles the 

Ninth in 1571. Carp was 

a fresh-water fish which 

some Crusader brought 

back to Europe from Asia, 

breeding it with great care 

in the ponds of his castle 

grounds. It is interesting 

that the necessities of war 

have revived the eating of 

carp. Now — four hundred 

years after it was brought 

to England — government 

publications are urging 

English-speaking peoples 

to eat more carp. Carrots 

came from the gardens of Holland, and a better 

vegetable could not have been brought. 

Sugar, which we found it so hard to do without in 
war time, came to England only in Shakespeare's day. 
It was brought from Venice and was a great luxury. 
No nation or generation in all the world's history 
has used sugar as we Americans are using it in the 




62 FOOD AND LIFE 

twentieth century. People had to get their sweets out 
of the other foods where Nature has stored them. 

Only in our own time has a world table been set ; 
only in our time has it been interesting to cultivate a 
world appetite. People have always kept their bodies 
nourished on the foods that lay close about them. 
Nature has seen to it that every man who lived close 
to the soil could in his own country raise the necessary 
life foods and fuel foods. The Chinese had their rice 
for fuel, and the Irish their potatoes. Bread and fruits 
were staple articles of diet almost everywhere. The 
Eskimo gets his fat from whale blubber, the southerner 
his from olive oil. Both can make up their daily ration 
of 2500 calories for body needs. For variety and inter- 
est and attractiveness nothing so wonderful as our 
present group of foods brought from all parts of the 
world has ever been known. 

A world appetite is one qualification for a good 
traveler. If you went to dine at the home of a China- 
man and he offered you rice from his own rice fields, 
it would not be polite to say, "No, I thank you." A 
good traveler follows in eating, as in other customs of 
living, the old rule " When in Rome, do as the Romans 
do." He finds it worth while to do this not only for 
politeness but also for his own comfort. A man who 
could eat nothing but the food he had always been 
accustomed to raise on his own farm would have a 
sorry time of it if he went on a trip around the world 
and inquired everywhere for food to which he was 



A WORLD APPETITE 63 

accustomed. Stefansson is able to live beyond the 
reach of relief expeditions in the far North because he 
can eat the food which the tribes dwelling there eat, 
and can live as they live. He can live "off the country," 
as Caesar's armies did. 

It was Stefansson's willingness to eat the same 
kind of food they ate which made some of the most 
remote tribes which he visited feel safe with him. 
There was one tribe in the far, far North which had 
never been visited by a white man and knew nothing 
of our world. Toward it across the ice plains Stefansson 
and his two companions came, to be looked upon at 
first as spirits from another world, not as flesh-and- 
blood men. As the news of the coming of the strangers 
spread through the village, men, women, and children 
came out to meet them. The women of each family, 
writes Stefansson,^ "were in more hurry to be presented 
than the men, for they must, they said, go right back 
to their houses to cook us something to eat." You 
have often seen your mothers slip away as quickly to 
prepare food for an unexpected guest who had come 
a long journey. The men of the village set about pre- 
paring a house for the strangers, but before it was 
done children came running to announce that their 
mothers had dinner ready. 

Stefansson's own hostess was " motherly, kindly, and 
hospitable, like all her countrywomen. Her first ques- 
tions were not of the land from which I came, but of 

1 From " My Life with the Eskimo." The Macmillan Company, 1913. 



64 FOOD AND LIFE 

my footgear. Were n't my feet just a little damp, and 
might she not pull my boots off for me and dry them 
over the lamp ? Would I not put on a pair of her hus- 
band's dry socks, and was there no little hole in my 
mittens or coat that she could mend for me ? She had 
boiled some seal meat for me, but she had not boiled 
any fat, for she did not know whether I preferred the 
blubber boiled or raw. They always cut it in small 
pieces and ate it raw themselves ; but the pot still 
hung over the lamp, and anything she put into it 
would be cooked in a moment. When I told her that 
my tastes quite coincided with theirs — as, in fact, they 
did — she was delighted. People were much alike, 
then, after all, though they came from a great distance. 
She would accordingly treat me exactly as if I were 
one of their own people come to visit them from afar." 

It was a strange moment when this twentieth- 
century explorer met a woman who might for all that 
she knew of the great modern world have been living 
in the Stone Age. Its difficulties were smoothed away 
before they even appeared by the simple sharing of 
a meal together. " People were much alike, then, after 
all," she said as he ate her food, and she adopted 
this strange white man as one of her owai people. 

Some of us would not have met the test as well as 
Stefansson did. We would not have been so ready to 
enjoy seal meat and raw blubber. Our tastes would 
not have been so broad as his. His would not have 
been so broad if they had not been trained. That is 



A WORLD APPETITE 



65 



one thing that we all should do — train our tastes so that 
we may have not a local, narrow range of likes and 
dislikes in food but a world taste and a world appetite. 

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, every 
group of boys and girls getting together for self- 
training, go through 
regular drills and 
tests to improve 
their sight and hear- 
ing. They train their 
hands so that their 
sense of touch may 
be more keen. By 
cold baths and vig- 
orous exercise they 
train their skin to 
resist cold. Let us 
begin to train our 
tastes. 

First make a list 
of the kinds of food 
you eat in a week, 

not forgetting to count all the seasoning and spices 
and flavoring in the different dishes. Then study 
up in your geography and ask your grocer, your market 
man, and your fruit dealer, if you do not know, where 
each of the foods comes from. See how many coun- 
tries help to set your world table ; then see how much 
of a world appetite you have. Explorers have had to 




66 FOOD AND LIFE 

cultivate world appetites because they were going 
around the world. You will find it very much worth 
while to cultivate a world appetite, because the foods 
of the world are coming to you. 

Then when you travel, your tastes will be already 
trained. No one is so independent at home or abroad 
as the man who eats everything and likes everything. 
He has stretched his food tether to encircle the globe. 

QUESTIONS 

How can it be said that we sit at a world table ? 

What does it mean to have a world appetite ? 

From what countries do the foods on your table come ? 



CHAPTER X 

THE FIRST STEP 

"To dine," it has been said, "was the first step up 
on the highway of civiHzation." This first step man 
took when he began to cook his food. He is the only 
hving creature that can make a fire ; so he is the only 
creature that can practice the arts of cookery. This he 
has always done, to a greater or less degree. There is 
hardly a record in history or tradition of a tribe so 
savage that it ate all its food raw. The myths of 
all nations, as soon as they have told how man was 
created, give an account of how man got fire. The 
witty Frenchman was not far amiss who called man 
a " cooking animal." 

Fire was to early peoples so wonderful that it is 
always pictured as the property of the gods, given to 
man by them as a reward for service or, more often, 
stolen or snatched from them by man. You should 
re-read, or read for the first time if you do not know 
it, the classic Greek myth of Prometheus, the friend of 
mankind who suffered untold agony that man might 
have fire. 

The Polynesians have a story which traces the desire 
for fire directly to the taste for cooked food. Maui, so 

the legend runs, was a guard between the upper world 

67 



68 FOOD AND LIFE 

where mortals lived and the lower world where dwelt 
the gods. Though Maui had been born in the under- 
world, he had never tasted cooked food. When his 
mother came to visit him as he paced back and forth 
between the two worlds, she never shared the food 
which he offered her but ate always from a basket 
which she brought with her. One day, while she slept, 
Maui peeped into her basket and tasted a bit of her 
food. It was far better than anything he had ever 
eaten. Maui knew that the dwellers in the underworld 
prepared their food with fire, which neither he nor 
any other mortal had ever been permitted to see. " If 
fire makes food as good as this," said Maui to himself, 
" I must have it." So one day he followed his mother 
secretly to the underworld, and after many adventures 
obtained from the Fire God the secret of making a fire. 
After that he cooked food for himself. Nor was Maui 
selfish with this wonderful secret which he had obtained 
at such risk. He gave of his cooked food to mortals, and 
finally even shared with them his wonderful secret of 
how to make fires over which to cook their own food. 
Cooking is the preparation of food by applying heat. 
This heat may be applied in several ways. The sim- 
plest and most primitive was to hold the food directly 
over a fire. We still cook by this direct exposure when 
we broil meat or toast bread. Roasting was another 
method of cooking with heat which came directly 
from the coals. Although we speak of " roast lamb " 
or "roast beef," nowadays we almost never roast. The 



THE FIRST STEP 



69 



name remains from the time when meat was really 
roasted, the time when it was cooked out of doors over 
huge fires or turned on a spit before the open fires in 
the deep fireplaces of our forefathers. What we to-day 




A NEW ENGLAND FIREPLACE 



call " roast beef " is really " baked beef," — beef cooked 
by dry heat in an oven. Ancient tribes baked both in 
the embers under their fires, as we bake potatoes in 
the hot ashes of a camp fire, and in holes in the ground 
lined with hot stones. They would wrap the food in 
leaves and lay it on the stones, closing the hole at the 
top to keep the heat in. We are following this ancient 



70 FOOD AND LIFE 

way of baking when we heat the soapstones of a fire- 
less cooker and place the food between them. 

Toasting, broiling, roasting, and baking are all 
methods of cooking in a dry heat ; water or any other 
liquid is introduced only to prevent burning and to 
add flavor, as in the case of basting (which is to say 
moistening) meat which is being baked. Boiling, stew- 
ing, and steaming make use of the heat obtained in the 
boiling of some liquid. To boil is to subject to the 
action of heat in a boiling liquid ; to stew is to boil 
slowly or to cook in a little water at a temperature 
below boiling point; to steam is to cook in the steam 
which comes from water at or near the boiling point. 
Indian tribes living near hot springs used to bring 
their raw food and cook it in the steam that rose from 
the ground near the spring. One tribe of Indians in 
our own country were called Stone Boilers, because 
it was their custom to fit a water-tight skin into a hole 
in the ground, pour water into this skin, put in the 
meat to be cooked, and then drop in red-hot stones. 
The heat from the stones would start the water boiling 
and thus cook the meat. Sometimes the stomach of 
the animal of which the flesh was being cooked would 
be used to hold the water, for the stomach is a natural 
pot of a fairly strong kind. 

Cooking in fat, which we call/rj'/;/^, must have come 
later than these other methods of cooking, for it re- 
quired the use of a pan or griddle to keep the fat from 
dripping into the fire or oozing out into the water. 



72 FOOD AND LIFE 

Cooking by direct exposure to heat over an open 
fire is wasteful because the heat spreads in every other 
direction as well as the one where is hung or laid the 
food to be cooked. Most of our cooking is done to- 
day either in an oven or in a pot or kettle, in some- 
thing that receives the heat and holds it. 

It is interesting that to-day many of the old proc- 
esses of cooking, which were laid aside with the com- 
ing in of the modern cookstove, are being revived. 
We have spoken of the fireless cooker, which will hold 
the heat in a covered kettle and let the mixture within 
cook for hours after the start given it by a few 
moments of heat applied from the stove. Outdoor 
cooking is being revived ; boy and girl campers are 
making use of ways of building outdoor ovens and 
tiny stone fireplaces which the Indians of five hun- 
dred years ago would recognize at once, should they 
return from their Happy Hunting Grounds to the 
woods and plains over which once they ranged. 

Outdoor cooking, in your own backyard if the fire 
laws permit or on the camping trips of your family, 
your group of Boy or Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls, 
or any other club, is not only good fun ; it is very 
much worth while. It is good to be independent. It 
is good to go away from the town or city, from 
the kitchen with its cookstove and its woodpile or 
coal hod into the open and there to draw on the store- 
house of Nature for your supplies. It is good to match 
your wits against the conditions of wind and woods 



THE FIRST STEP 



73 



and weather, your muscles against the difficulties of a 
scattered supply of necessaries, and to come out the 
victor, with a palatable, well-cooked meal to your credit. 
You have gained in the effort not only food but power. 
You have taken a part in the romantic, adventurous 
struggle of man to win a living from the land on 
which he finds himself. You have taken with the first 
man the first step on the highway of upward progress. 

QUESTIONS 

What are the three methods of cooking by direct heat ? Describe 
each of them. 

What is baking ? 

How do boiling, stewing, and steaming differ from these other 
methods ? 

What name do we give to cooking in fat ? 

How many of these ways of cooking have you practiced, indoors 
or out ? 




CHAPTER XI 

THE MOMENT OF EATING 

If we did not enjoy eating, perhaps we should not 
be wilhng to take so much trouble to keep ourselves 
alive. Nature knew how that would be, so she did 
everything to make us enjoy the actual moment of 
eating. Man has responded by throwing around the 
moment of eating not only ceremony but a certain 
sacred ness. To go through any form of eating to- 
gether has been, among the simplest as well as the 
most cultured peoples, an act which carried with it 
obligations of friendship. The u^nderer who had 
shared the food of an Arab host in a tent on the 
desert w^as from that moment under his host's pro- 
tection. To the ancient Greeks no law was more 
sacred than the law of hospitality. When a man had 
partaken of food in the home of his host, a covenant 
had been formed between them. 

A Persian nobleman was walking in his beautiful 
gardens when a man came rushing to him in great 
distress. He was fleeing from the crowd whose shouts 
could already be heard without the gates. The noble- 
man was at that instant eating a peach. To the fugi- 
tive he gave the remainder of the peach. When the 
crowd had forced their way into the nobleman's 

75 



76 FOOD AND LIFE 

presence, they told him that this man who had hid- 
den himself from them in the garden had slain within 
an hour the only son of the nobleman. For this they 
were following him ; for this they demanded that he 
be turned over to them for punishment. The noble- 
man hesitated but a moment. "We have eaten to- 
gether," he said; "he must go in peace." Only when 
the murderer was beyond his host's protection could 
he be made to answer for his deed. 

With us the moment of eating has been made the 
center of family and social life. On the physical side 
this is wise. That the old proverb "Good digestion 
waits on appetite" is true, we have seen from our 
study of digestion. Only when taste prepares the way 
do the mouth and stomach send out their digestion 
juices promptly. 

It has long been suspected that smell has a great 
deal to do with pleasure in eating. Lately it has been 
possible to test this with three persons who had lost 
their sense of smell. Two of them were housekeepers, 
familiar with food in every stage of preparation. 
They would have had no idea, had these tests not 
been made, that their taste responses to food were so 
different from those of others. Yet when they were 
blindfolded and given different foods to taste and 
name, there w^ere whole groups of foods which they 
found it almost if not quite impossible to identify. 
Butter, cream, and olive oil they could hardly tell apart. 
They could give no names to vanilla extracts, pineapple 



THE MOMENT OF EATING 77 

sirup, bananas, grapes, quinces, strawberries. Tea and 
chocolate, which each took frequently, they could not 
name without sight or smell. Sour milk they did not 
recognize, nor did they reject kerosene when it was 
offered to them. Housekeepers of similar experience 
but with the normal sense of smell were able blind- 
folded to name these same foods without dii^culty. 

Smell, as taste's silent partner, is evidently far more 
important than we have supposed. Thinking back, we 
can prove this to ourselves by remembering how taste- 
less food is when we have a cold in the head which 
interferes with the keenness of our sense of smell. 
Taste and smell, with sight for a much less active 
partner, are the senses for whose examination the cook 
must prepare food. Taste and smell have always been 
put low in the scale of the senses, yet for bodily wel- 
fare and for actual pleasure they must be reckoned 
high. Sight and hearing have to do with what is out- 
side the body ; taste and smell have to do with what is 
entering the body. A man may see horrible sights and 
live ; he may hear most distressing sounds and live ; 
but he cannot take poison and live. Because it is so 
necessary for our well-being, it is said that the sense of 
taste is at birth the best developed of our senses. 

All this new appreciation of taste and smell in its 
relation to food and bodily welfare gives us a new stand- 
ard by which to rate the skill of the cook. We 
hold in esteem, says Hollingworth," the workman whose 
craft consists in the preparation and arrangement 



78 FOOD AND LIFE 

of sights and sounds in pleasing elements, orders, 
and compositions." He is an artist. "The workman 
whose craft consists in the preparation and presenta- 
tion of acceptable sensations of taste, smell, touch, and 
temperature" — the cook, is not he or she an artist, 
too ? Cookery is the oldest science in the world. It 
has been honored by kings and practiced by men and 
women of higli skill. The cookbooks of the Middle 
Ages were written almost entirely by men, usually by 
doctors, for medicine and cookery have always been rec- 
ognized as sciences which went hand in hand. " I do not 
consider myself as hazarding anything," said Dr. Lister, 
physician to Queen Anne and writer of a very good cook- 
book, " when I say that no man can be a good physician 
who has not a competent knowledge of cookery.'/ 

It is in recognition of the pleasure and importance 
of eating that man has made it the center of so much 
that is spiritual as well as physical. It takes weeks, 
months, even years, for our food to grow. It takes 
hours and days to prepare it, through the various 
stages, for its appearance on the table. It takes fifteen 
or twenty or thirty minutes to eat it. Of any actual 
mouthful we are conscious only a minute or two. 
That moment should be very satisfying to make all 
the preparation worth while. Let us think what we 
do or may do to make it so. 

We eat at regular times. This is good for our bodily 
welfare, as the body adapts itself easily to taking small 
amounts of food at appointed times. Go past your 



THE MOMENT OF EATING 79 

regular mealtime and the body reacts unfavorably, 
with discomfort of one sort or another. It is bad, 
too, to be eating all the time, as it gives no chance for 
the rests which are -good for every part of our body 
machinery. It is better, too, not to overload the body 
with all the food at one meal, though this custom of 
frequent meals w^as not followed in many periods of 
which we have historic record. Plato, the Greek 
philosopher, was much surprised when, traveling in 
Italy, he noticed that the inhabitants ate twice a day 
instead of once, as was his native custom. 

We eat in groups. Tasting is not a social act. 
Taste and smell require nearness to or actual contact 
with the object to be smelled or tasted. This may be 
one reason why they have been regarded as lower 
senses. Twenty persons may look at the same picture 
at one and the same moment, sharing in the reactions 
it causes in them. Only one person may taste a given 
bit of food. Convenience and the social instinct have 
supplemented taste in this respect, making eating 
one of the chief social functions of life. It is much 
easier to cook food in quantity than to prepare single 
portions. It is better for one skilled person to do it 
over a single fire than for each person to prepare his 
own food over his own little heater. So we have food 
cooked in bulk and ready for eating at a certain time. 
Even this does not necessarily mean that we shall 
eat it together. Missionaries and teachers of backward 
peoples always feel that they have won a victory when 



So 



FOOD AND LIFE 



they persuade a family to sit down at a table and 
eat together. In making social the moment of eat- 
ing they have strengthened the ties of family life. 
Members of a South Pacific tribe living on the island 
of Tahiti were found, by the first white men who 




BACK TO BACK 



landed there, to gather at the hour for eating, place 
themselves at a distance of two or three yards apart, 
turn their backs on each other, and eat in utter silence. 
The old custom had been handed down to them from 
the days when each feared that his food might be stolen 
from him by his next neighbor. 

We serve food attractively. We remember that 
smell and sight are taste's silent partners and we try 



THE MOMENT OF EATING 8 1 

in every way to meet their requirements as well as 
those of taste. A banquet, a funcheon, a camping 
supper, a "club feed," are only incidentally nourishing. 
It is the social element and the festive and artistic 
element that give them their charm. We share the 
deep-rooted instinct of the ancient peoples, to whom 
eating together was the highest form of companionship. 
Man approaches the spiritual through the physical. 
We greet one another by a cordial clasping of the 
hands. We express our friendship by satisfying to- 
gether our bodily needs. Food has entered into the 
highest acts of religion. The Jewish Passover is one 
symbol, the Lord's Supper another. In the break- 
ing of bread together Jesus and his disciples sealed 
their spiritual union. Not only do we dignify the 
moment of eating when we sit together about the 
family table ; the more we make of family life at meal- 
times the more happy family life we shall have. The 
family table is the place for the sharing of family 
interests. Begin each meal with a word of thanks to the 
Father in heaven for the food which we are about to 
eat together, and we have made the circle complete. 

QUESTIONS 

What three senses have to do with our enjoyment of food ? 
Why do we find food to be without flavor when we have colds ? 
Why is it good for us to eat at regular times ? 
What do we gain by eating in groups ? 



CHAPTER XII 
IN THE WORLD'S FOOD MARKET 

Indian boys and girls did not know much about 
markets. Their food came to them directly, without 
being bought or sold. They saw their fathers go out on 
the hunt to get meat. It was brought home, dressed, 
and prepared for eating. They saw their mothers plant 
corn and maize, harvest it, grind it, and make it into a 
kind of bread. Only when the work of the tribe was 
divided and parceled out was there need of a market 
or food exchange. When some were chosen for the 
hunt, and others who stayed at home must get meat 
from them, then for the first time there might be 
buying and selling. 

The world's first markets were small and local. 
People of a neighborhood brought in their fruits and 
vegetables, their grains and meats, and shared by pur- 
chase or exchange in the products of their neighbors' 
farms. All the food displayed would come from within 
two, three, four, or five miles of the place of selling. 
When food was exchanged for other food, instead of 
money being passed, the transaction was called barter. 
All the early trade of the world was by barter. The 

people in one village had this year more wheat than 

82 



IN THE WORLD'S FOOD MARKET 8^ 

they needed ; those in the next had more pork. Wheat 
was sent from the first village to the market of the 
second village, which in its turn sent back pork. So it 
went on, and the circle of food exchange grew larger 
and larger until to-day, as we have seen, we buy at our 
markets and eat at our tables food from all over the 
world. Instead of being little separate markets, the 
markets of each village, town, and city have become 
branches of the world's great Food Market. They are 
not independent of one another; they are like a chain 
of stores that encircles the globe. 

If we had never thought of the world as buying 
at one great Food Market, we should have learned to 
do so during the war. The war taught us many lessons. 
The most important, which we shall remember longest, 
were those about the oneness of the whole world. We 
found that our village or town or city or even our 
nation did not and could not live unto itself. It was 
linked up closely with the rest of the world. One of 
the ways in which we felt this most quickly was in 
that great world's Food Business, into which, as you 
read in the first chapter of this book, we were all born 
as partners. 

The world's Food Market carries on a huge business. 
Food is reckoned in tons and carloads and shiploads 
instead of in pounds and packages. If all the foods 
in this market could be spread out on counters which 
you could see, as it is actually spread out in millions 
of branch shops, there would be, in spite of the endless 



84 FOOD AND LIFE 

variety of foods, also a great sameness. All the differ- 
ent names and kinds of vegetables and meats and 
breadstiiffs and fruits would match up and fall into a 
few big groups. When they had been put into these 
groups, a few chief foods would stand out as the foods 
on which people everywhere depend. These take far 
more space on the counters of the world Food Market 
than any others or than many of the lesser foods 
put together. 

Wheat, with its sisters and cousins, — rice, millet, 
rye, barley, corn, and maize, — holds chief place. The 
world raises more grains and cereals than any other 
food. It gets more nourishment out of them than out 
of any other food. It ships more of them from place 
to place. That is the reason why wheat was a subject 
of so much importance in the war. Kings and presi- 
dents and food administrations, ambassadors and 
peace conferences, — all had to give much time and 
thought to the problem of raising, carrying, and dis- 
tributing wheat and the other cereals. 

Sugar occupies an important place. In the year 1 9 1 3, 
the year before the war, the sugar crop of the world was 
nearly twenty-one million tons. This was less than one 
fifth of the world's wheat crop ; but the sugar was pro- 
duced in fewer places than the cereals. Its circle of 
exchange was larger. So our sugar shortage was due, 
more than to any other one thing, to the lack of ships. 
When we had to go without cane sugar from the tropics, 
we looked about on the counters of the world's Food 



IN THE WORLD'S FOOD MARKET 



85 



Market and found many other nature sugars which 
grew nearer home. The beet-sugar industry was greatly 
helped. Corn sirups, honey, maple sirups, and the like 
were used as substitutes for sugar. We use sugar 
more for its flavor than as a food. A little of it 
will go a long way in flavor, and we can get our 
needed fuel in larger measure from other foods. 




A WAR-TIME EXHIBIT OF SUGAR SUBSTITUTES 

Beans occupy a great deal of space in the world's 
Food Market. The people who would be crowding to 
buy the largest amounts of them would be the people of 
India and other countries of the Far East. Our own 
country raised in the year before the war only about 
one tenth as many beans as India. Beans of one kind 
or another are found everywhere in the world, however, 
and a most satisfying and nourishing food they are. 

European, British, and American peoples would be 
found crowding around the potato counter. It would 



86 FOOD AND LIFE 

be a big section of the market and well loaded. A 
bushel of potatoes has nowhere near the food value, 
bulk for bulk, of a bushel of grain. So while potatoes 
take up a great deal of space and are popular, they 
are better to eat in the local market than to ship to 
distant places. 

We Westerners would be surprised to see that meat 
does not take nearly so important a place in the 
markets of the world as it does in our own local markets. 
More than half the people of the earth eat very little 
meat. This is because in many parts of the world 
there is not room for the meat-producing animals — 
cattle and sheep and hogs. These animals must have 
land for grazing. When people come into a region 
and settle thickly, the meat-producing animals are 
crowded out. So the meat of the world is produced in 
only a few countries — Australia, New Zealand, the 
United States, Argentina, and Canada — and is eaten 
chiefly in those countries and in lands to which it is 
easily carried. Europe and the British Isles buy a 
good deal of meat. 

The same animals are far more important to most 
of the world for the milk, butter, and cheese they 
produce when living than for the meat of their bodies. 
Milk is probably the most important food we have and is 
increasingly in demand, especially in the Western world. 
Because it is so important, we should all drink a good 
daily portion of it. Here we mention it only as having 
an important place in the list of mankind's chief foods. 



IN THE WORLD'S FOOD MARKET 8y 

Fish, vegetables, fruits, and nuts are to be found on 
the tables of local food markets. Japan eats a great 
deal of fish, as do many coast sections and islands. 
Every country has its own fruits and vegetables. 
Some of them enter into the trade between countries. 
But if we could see the world's Food Market as the 
world's foods are spread out on it, wheat and other 
cereals would take the most space ; sugar would call 
itself to our notice at once ; beans, potatoes, and 
meats would follow along ; milk would stand out as 
very important. In each country these chief foods 
would be accompanied by local foods. 

No boy or girl who lived through the war will find 
this list of chief foods hard to remember. The names 
of these appeared many times on war posters. When 
the war made it hard to ship food from one place 
to another, we tried to eat more of the local foods. 
Wheat we had to send abroad, because people there 
could not be raising it ; so we cut down our wheat 
ration and ate local " substitutes," the sisters and 
cousins of wheat, which could not be shipped so easily 
but which would give us a good measure of fuel- and 
life-food elements. Corn, which is a native American 
food, came into its own during the war, giving us 
of its sweetness in corn sirups as well as its other 
nourishing elements as a cereal. Almost all the war 
substituting of foods was a coming back to our own 
local markets instead of sweeping so wide a circle in 
our exchange of foods. It had the other side too, that 



88 



FOOD AND LIFE 



we tried to send to empty food markets in suffering 
lands food from our local markets. 

QUESTIONS 

How did there come to be markets ? 

What groups of foods hold chief places in the world's Food Market ? 
Which foods are best in a local market ? Which are shipped from 
country to country ? 



,-..'-■'^1 




CHAPTER XIII 

THE PITCHER AND THE LOAF 

In the long-ago days when mysterious and powerful 
strangers sometimes walked the earth in disguise, it 
befell at nightfall that two travelers came to the humble 
cottage of an aged couple, old Philemon and his 
good wife Baucis. These strangers, who were humbly 
dressed, had been driven rudely out of the neighbor- 
ing village, where they had sought food and shelter. 
Philemon and Baucis welcomed them cordially, for 
they were given to hospitality. However poor and 
scanty their fare, they were always more than glad to 
share it with the hungry stranger. So they set before 
these guests all that the house afforded, grieving only 
that their last loaf of bread was half eaten and their 
pitcher only partly filled with milk. But behold ! as 
the strangers lifted again and again the pitcher, which 
a moment before they had emptied, it had in some 
mysterious way filled itself again, and as Baucis cut 
the bread, thinking that each slice would be the last, 
there was always another slice. The pitcher was 
become, through the wonder-working powers of the 
guests, a miraculous pitcher which would never be 
empty when Philemon or Baucis might need milk; 
the loaf was renewed to meet the needs of these guests. 



90 FOOD AND LIFE 

With an enchanted pitcher and a self-renewing loaf 
no one need suffer for nourishing and palatable food. 
Bread and milk and bread and butter (made from milk) 
are the best all-round foods in the world. No one 
would want to live on them alone. Philemon and 
Baucis served their guests honey for sweets and 
grapes for fruits and added to their own noonday 
meal vegetables from their garden. But as a basis 
for the diet of everyone, and particularly of growing 
boys and girls, milk is the best all-round food, with 
bread as a close second. Put the two together and 
you have life foods and fuel foods in good measure. 

Milk is the only kind of food that should never 
be left out of our diet. No matter what the price, we 
cannot afford to go without it. Milk is so important 
that every state has whole books of laws about it ; 
every farmer who sells it is especially followed up by 
county and state officials. The reasons why we should 
every one of us take a quart if possible, but surely 
a pint of milk, a day are facts every boy and girl 
should know. 

First, vtilk comes nearest of any food to being a com- 
plete diet in itself. Babies live on it ; young animals 
live on it. It has fat in it and a milk sugar; it has 
two very desirable proteins, so that a considerable 
part of our needful protein life food can come from 
it ; it has mineral elements in it, particularly a larger 
amount of calcium (lime) than any other food. Calcium, 
makes and remakes our bones, and in other ways is 



THE PITCHER AND THE LOAF 9I 

needed for good health. There is hardly any in meat 
or bread, none in fats and sugars, very little in most 
other foods ; but in a quart of milk there is enough 
for a daily portion for a boy or girl, in a pint enough 
for a grown person. Milk and the butter made from 
it have also those two necessary items for growth and 
health, the vitamines, which we spoke of among our 
life foods. We sent all we could of food containing 
these vitamines to the starving children of Belgium, for 
it was found that these helped them to grow and to get 
and keep well. We had always had enough vitamines 
in our diet so that except in war times or cases of 
underfeeding we had not known how much they were 
needed. Milk has small amounts of other elements 
good for keeping the body running. 

So, first, fnilk should be taken for the large number of 
good and needful life foods and fuel foods in it. It has 
in it almost everything needed for growth and body- 
building and body-running, though there are other 
things used in these processes which it does not 
supply. It is not a complete diet, but it comes nearer 
to being such than any other food. 

Second, the elements in milk are easily taken up by the 
human body. The Body Self welcomes milk because 
its sugar can be easily put to use, its proteins easily 
turned into life-stuff. 

Third, milk is easy to cook with. Used with other 
foods it makes appetizing dishes. Turn over the pages 
of a cookbook and see how many recipes use milk. 



92 



FOOD AND LIFE 



It is good for us and easy for the body to take up; 
it is also in a convenient form for us to use. 

Fourth, it Jits in luith other foods which lue commonly 
eat and makes tip for the elements which they lack. If we 
drink or take in our cooked food a good amount of 
milk along with our other foods, we may feel quite 
sure we are running our body business well. If we 
do not take milk, we must take a good deal of trouble 
to attend to getting the right kinds of food. 

Fifth, it is economical — whatever its price. A quart 
of milk is equal in fuel value to eight eggs or nine 
ounces of round steak. It has been calculated that 
milk at twenty-five cents a quart would be cheaper 
food than eggs or steak at average prices. Here is 
what four writers have said about it : 

Milk is the cheapest form of animal food for the money 
that the householder can buy. — H. B. Endicott, State and 
Federal Food Administrator 

The greatest factor of safety in the human diet is the reg- 
ular use of milk. — United States Food Administration 

You can get more for your money in milk in actual food 
value, in energy, in protein, in repairing and building proper- 
ties than in any other food in the world. — W. T. Sedgwick, 
Professor of Biology in Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Milk is an indispensable article of the diet of any people 

who wish to achieve Without the continued use of 

milk ... we cannot as a nation maintain the position as a world 
power to which we have risen. The keeping of dairy animals 
was the greatest factor in the history of the development of 



THE PITCHER AND THE LOAF 



93 



man from a state of barbarism. .... We are still depend- 
ent on the dairy industry for our continued prosperity. — 
E. V. McCoLLUM, United States Nutrition Expert 

No wonder states and cities and towns and homes 
look after their milk supply to see that it is clean and 
wholesome, for milk, more than almost any other food, 
suffers from being carelessly handled. In the care of 
milk from the moment of milking to the moment of 
eating there are three rules to be followed : keep it 
clean ; keep it cool ; keep it covered. Follow these three 
rules and your milk will do wonderful things for your 
body health. 

As soon as we grow up from being babies we pass 
from having milk alone to having bread with it or 
bread by itself. Bread is truly, as the proverb says, 
" the staff of life." In the problem of feeding whole 
nations on the least amount of food possible, during 
the war, it was found that if the bread ration of a 
people was kept normal and sufficient a great deal of 
change and of cutting down might be practiced in the 
other foods of the diet without harm to the health or 
spirits of the people. 

Bread has been eaten by all peoples, but to some of 
the queer foods that other peoples have called breads 
we should not give that name. They were alike in 
having been made from a kind of flour which was 
made from some cereal. Here their likeness to our 
whole- wheat bread or our white bread or our biscuits 
and rolls and muiHns ended. We as a people have the 



94 



FOOD AND LIFE 



best bread in the world. We are likely to eat too 
much white bread and too little corn and graham and 
whole-wheat and other breads that have in them some 
food elements for body-building and body-running 
that white bread does not have. All breads give good 
bulk to our food and help the body to keep its waste 




IN AN ARMY BAKERY 



materials moving. We should eat each day one or 
two slices of some bread besides white bread if we can. 

When you have a chance, watch while bread is 
being made. Bread-making is carefully regulated by the 
government — in flour mills, where flour is made from 
the grains, and in public bakeries, where loaves of 
bread are sold. Bread-making is one of the most inter- 
esting operations of cooking and is worth looking into, 
until some day you learn to make bread yourself. 

So long as we as a nation have a miraculous milk 
pitcher that never runs dry and a loaf of bread to eat 



THE PITCHER AND THE LOAF 



95 



with our milk, we shall not suffer for good foods. It 
is for you to be sure that pitcher and loaf are given 
sufficient honor at your table. 

QUESTIONS 

What do we mean when we say that milk is almost a complete diet ? 
(See charts, pp. 173 and 177.) 

What are the five reasons for milk in our diet ? 
How much should every boy or girl take each day ? 
What part does bread have in our diet ? 




CHAPTER XIV 

THE GIFT OF A GARDEN 

A garden was God's first gift to man. When, accord- 
ing to the Creation story, he had formed man, the 
Lord God went eastward and planted a garden. 
There he put the man whom he had formed. " And 
out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every 
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." 
This garden man was to "dress" and "keep." Animals 
were not given a garden. They could not use one. 
Like man they eat plant food, but they must take it 
as they find it. The lion may be the King of Beasts, 
but he has no control of the land over which he stalks. 
To man was given dominion over the earth. The land 
is his, and he may use it as he will. The gift of a 
garden has been handed down from father to son, 
from generation to generation, for all the hundreds 
of years since. 

You remember the fable of the old man who as he 

was dying told his sons that in the bit of land which 

he was leaving them lay buried treasure. One son 

laughed at the idea and after digging for a few hours 

and finding nothing went away to seek his fortune 

elsewhere. The other son stayed at home on the land 

the father had left them, and as he worked over it and 

96 



THE GIFT OF A GARDEN 97 

dug in it and tended the seeds which were planted in 
it he found in his garden both heaUh and weaUh. To 
him the land had given its hidden treasure. 

They are old stories, but they are as true for you 
and me as on the day when they were first written. 
We too can have for the asking the gift of a garden, 
and there never was more need for the wealth that we 
shall find in it than there is just now. The saddest 
sight in France is No Man's Land, that region miles 
and miles wide which was once the fairest garden 
land in France and is now a barren waste, hideously 
plowed by shells and sown with the remains of 
warfare, so that it will be years and years before it 
can be made to bloom again. Yet old men and 
women and children are finding their way back to 
these desolate wastes, eager to spend their lives to 
make this once more the garden spot of France. We 
who take land and garden stuff as a matter of course, 
and even grumble a little over the work that must be 
done to plant the seeds and keep the rows of little 
plants free from weeds, may well think of this and be 
thankful for our gift. The worst waste lot in New 
York City from which Boy Scouts took wagonloads 
of tin cans and ashes last summer before they 
made it into a school garden would seem wealth to 
little French boys and girls compared to their own 
ruined land. Yet the French children are making 
battlefields into gardens as fast as ever they can. 
While these gardens of the war countries are in the 



98 FOOD AND LIFE 

making, and in the many years before they can be 
what they were before the war, we must make the 
most of the land which we have and so help to raise 
food for those who have not our rich gift. 

Uncle Sam found out during the war what his 
children can do in the way of food gardens. That is 
why he is piping for you all to follow him as he 
leads the way to the fields. " Let me suggest," said 
President Wilson, as he called the nation to arms 
and to service in April, 191 7, "let me suggest that 
everyone who creates or cultivates a garden helps, 
and helps greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding 
of the nations." The answer of the boys and girls to 
this call was splendid. Sixty thousand acres of land 
that had been lying idle was made into food gardens 
by a million and a half boys and girls. Now, when 
you have a garden you are joining an army, the 
United States School Garden Army. It is as big 
as the army Uncle Sam sent to France, and it is 
growing every day. When you have joined it you 
are not only cultivating your own little plot of land, 
you are an active partner with Uncle Sam in his 
share of the world's food business. Just at present 
Uncle Sam is taking a very large share of that 
business into his own hands in order to help out 
the hungry peoples who have been made land poor 
and food poor by the war. The sooner you sign up 
and get into the School Garden Army the better 
(on page 174 you can read how to do it). 



FOLLOW THE PIED PIPER 

Join the United States 
School Garden Army. 




lOO 



FOOD AND LIFE 



Having a garden takes you out of the ranks of 
those who only eat food and puts you in the ranks 
of those who raise food for eating as well as eating 
what other people have raised. The first question to 
ask yourself as a garden soldier is, What am I going 
to put into my garden? It goes back to another 




GARDEN SOLDIERS 



question, Who is going to eat what I grow in my 
garden ? You and your family and your neighbors 
will eat what you grow in your garden. That may 
sound selfish and disappointing. You have been think- 
ing that you will be ready to do the work of a garden 
if it is going to help feed hungry boys and girls on 
the other side of the world. Now you are told your 
garden is to feed yourself. Feeding yourself is the 
first thing for you to do as a garden soldier, for just 



THE GIFT OF A GARDEN 



lOI 



in so far as you feed yourself Uncle Sam will not 
have to feed you. He will have just so much more 
food of the kinds that can be packed and shipped to 
send overseas. Uncle Sam has about so much food 
that is raised every year in his food business. .Part 
of it you eat; not very 
much, perhaps, but as 
there are several million 
boys and girls who eat 
each about the same 
amount, it counts up. 
Uncle Sam does not 
want you to eat less 
than you need, but if 
you can raise for your 
own table food that 
would not otherwise be 
raised and so draw less 
on his supply, you will 
be a very worth-while 
soldier and partner. To- 
gether the boys and girls of the United States can 
release a large amount of food to go overseas. 

If you and your family are to eat the food from 
your garden, you must raise food that you will enjoy. 
You must think, too, how vegetables fit your body 
needs. Fruits and vegetables supply a great deal of 
water in the diet, and that is good. About two thirds 
of your whole body is water; the rest is solid. If you 




I02 FOOD AND LIFE 

weigh ninety pounds, sixty pounds of that weight 
is the water in every tissue of your body. As it 
rebuilds and runs itself, the body wants mixed in with 
its food a good supply of water ; fruits and vegetables 
will give this. An apple is eighty-five parts water to 
fifteen parts solid, a strawberry ninety parts water to 
ten parts solid. Even the starchy potato has seventy- 
eight parts of water to twenty-two of life and fuel 
foods, while celery has ninety-four parts water to 
six of solid. 

Fruits and vegetables give good bulk to our food, 
and that the body needs. If all our foods were liquid, 
like milk and water, or were closely packed, like medi- 
cine in tablets, they would not give the digestive tract 
enough material on which to work. The waste of the 
body would not be carried off so easily and regularly. 
Besides, we should not feel as if we had had a good 
meal. We want a good deal of something to eat. 
Fruits and vegetables make up that " something." If 
we have raised them in our own garden we are getting 
the needful bulk at a low price. 

Vegetables are plant foods, and as such they vaiy 
as to whether they contain more stored fuel food, 
saved by the plant for future use, or more proteins 
and other life foods. As a matter of fact we depend 
on them for all these needs of our bodies. They give 
us mineral salts. Milk, you remember, had calcium 
(lime). So do our common vegetables. They give us also 
good proteins, the foods which are next to life itself 



THE GIFT OF A GARDEN I03 

and so are needed for our living cells. The leaf vege- 
tables give us in their green parts good supplies of the 
vitamines, without which we can neither live nor grow. 

There is one other fact to remember about vege- 
tables in general. They fit in well with milk and 
bread and butter to make up a good all-round diet. If 
we want to treat the Body Self well without taking 
much trouble to figure out how much of each kind of 
food we are giving it, we are perfectly safe when we 
have put into our daily ration a good mixture of milk, 
bread and butter, and vegetables, with a sprinkling of 
sugar and a variety of fruits. 

Suppose all the common vegetables were to come 
and stand in a row before you and ask, one by one, 
for a place in your garden. If you had room you would 
like to -welcome them all. Perhaps you can, but even 
then you must choose which ones shall have the most 
space. Here is what they might say for themselves : 

Potato. I have a good portion of fuel food stored up in 
me ; I have a little protein of a kind that is very much 
needed and not very common ; I have a good supply of vita- 
mines ; and I have a group of mineral salts without which 
you cannot be healthy. 

Beans. You must plant a good many of my family, one 
kind or another. We all have a good mixture of fuel and 
life foods and water. Besides, we grow fast and do not need 
much care. 

Tomatoes. We are easy to raise, too, and though we are 
mostly water, we have a good acid flavor, we have some min- 
eral salts, and we look well and taste good on the table with 



I04 FOOD AND LIFE 

meat and potato and bread and butter and some of those 
other plain foods. 

Lettuce. I help out a great deal at table. I may be made 
up mostly of water, but I have minerals, and I am one of the 
very best of those leafy vegetables without which no one can 
get along. 

Cabbage. So am I, and I have a lot of nourishment in 
me, too. 

Spinach. So am I, and I have some iron for you. 

Beet. I give you fuel food and a sweet flavor as well. Much of 
the sugar of the world is beet sugar, which comes from such 
beets as you can grow in your garden. Why not plant me, 
tend me, eat me, and so get the sugar straight from me ? 

Peas. I am good for sugar, too, and for all the things 
seeds give to the diet. 

Carrots. People do not pay much attention to me, but 
they would if they knew that I have a good supply of fuel 
stored up in me, ten times as much lime as a potato of the 
same weight, and a good bit of phosphorus. Really, I am a 
kind of all-round vegetable. 

Radishes, Parsnips, and Turnips. We are roots. We are 
very good to eat and very good for you. 

You would have quite a garden if you listened to 
them all, would you not ? Read the garden suggestions 
sent out by the government for your army, which you 
may obtain by writing to the Director of the United 
States School Garden Army, Washington, D. C, talk 
over your plans with your parents and teacher, and then 
choose which you will plant by three tests: (i) what 
you like, (2) what you can raise easily, (3) what will 
give you good food value. 



THE GIFT OF A GARDEN 
QUESTIONS 



105 



In what way is the United States rich compared with other countries? 

How does your having a garden help Uncle Sam in his Food 
Business ? 

What do fruit and vegetables do for the body ? 

What part do fruit and vegetables have in an all-round diet? 
(See chart, p. 177.) 

Which vegetables shall you cultivate in your garden ? 




OUR FOOD 

To make the most of the food supply about us, 'we must 

Remember 

To enjoy the food which we eat, 

so that the body will welcome it ; 
To cultivate a world appetite, 

so that we may get the benefit of sitting at a 

world table ; 
To eat at regular times, 

so that the body may work and rest alternately ; 
To dignify the moment of eating, 

making it the center of family life ; 
To give to the pitcher of milk and the loaf of 

bread a place of honor at our tables ; 
To welcome at our tables a variety of fruits and 

vegetables, raising them in our own gardens 

in so far as we can. 



CHAPTER XV 

KITCHEN SERVICE 

Kitchen service is a service into which each one of 
us will at some time in our lives be drafted. Most of us 
will probably do a good deal of it, for we have not at 
our command the fairy spell which Little Two-Eyes 
had. The wise woman found her crying and taught her 
a spell which would keep her from ever being hungry 
again. She had only to say to her goat, " Little goat, 
bleat; little table, rise," and a neatly laid table would 
stand before her, with the most delicious food on it. 
When she was satisfied she had only to say, '' Little goat, 
bleat ; little table, away," and the table would disappear. 
When the wise woman had vanished. Little Two-Eyes 
tried the spell, and there before her was a little table 
covered with a white cloth, on which were laid a plate, 
a knife and fork, and a silver spoon. The most deli- 
cious food was there also, and smoking hot. " This is 
a beautiful, easy way of housekeeping," said Little 
Two-Eyes, and so it was. But it did not last even for 
Little Two-Eyes, for the prince came and took her 
to a beautiful home of her own. There she needed 
neither goat nor table, for she could have the happi- 
ness of keeping house for herself without any cross 

older sisters to take away her share of the food. 

107 



Io8 FOOD AND LIFE 

"I shall be a far better husband to some girl when 
I go home than I would have been if Uncle Sam had 
not drafted me," said a tall, handsome soldier, as he 
peeled potatoes by an army stove in France and 
talked to a visitor while he worked. " I think I 've 
peeled a million of these since I came to France ! 
And I thought I was coming over here to fight 
Germans!" Uncle Sam did not despise kitchen service 
when he came to the problem of feeding his boys in 
camps both here and overseas. He drafted into this 
branch of service every man who had had previous 
experience in cooking and urged all who showed any 
interest or talent to volunteer for training. Schools 
for army cooks were set up in many camps. Here 
men were given three months' instruction in cooking, 
at the end of which time those who had passed the 
examinations received diplomas and were assigned to 
be company cooks. 

The cooks had to learn how to use their supplies. 
They had to take the ration list which was spoken 
of in Chapter H (see pages lo and 164) and 
twist, turn, vary, and combine its ingredients so 
that the hard-working men would be well nourished. 
They had to see that the men had the right num- 
ber of calories each day. A soldier was using up a 
great deal of energy. He must make up for it by 
a good supply of fuel food. Including unavoidable 
waste, the American soldier is said to have taken into 
his body on an average 3635 calories' worth of food 



no FOOD AND LIFE 

daily, while his actual allowance was for nearly a thou- 
sand calories more. The prisoner of war had sent to 
him daily in the enemies' camps, through the agency of 
the Red Cross, by the advice of the surgeon general's 
food experts, a 2600-calorie ration. 

If you think you have had to learn in this book a 
good deal about calories and proteins and vitamines 
and other food matters of which you had never heard, 
you may rest assured that it is "child's play" compared 
to what these boys who qualified as army cooks had 
to learn. On whether they knew these facts and could 
make the most of- the ration given them, so that the 
men would eat it with relish, depended the health, 
the morale, and therefore the fighting power of the 
soldiers. It was a matter of winning the war or losing 
it. If any boy had ever failed to hold a good cook in 
honor before he went into the army or navy, he learned 
then and there his mistake. The cook came into his 
own as a person of importance. 

But how the boys hated the monotony of the camp 
mess ! How they longed for the home table and wel- 
comed the doughnuts of the Salvation Army lassies or 
the cups of chocolate of the " Y " and Red Cross can- 
teens ! I doubt if tliere was a man in the army who 
did not write home about the food he was eating, about 
the special Thanksgiving dinner, or the treat he had 
when he was on leave. The letters I received were full 
of such allusions. If you have ever eaten at a restau- 
rant or a boarding house for any length of time, you 



KITCHEN SERVICE 



III 



will know why the boys felt as they did. Only a good 
home cook, preparing food for a small family and put- 
ting love and intelligence into the task, can set an in- 
viting table day after day and week after week. Eating 
in platoons may be necessary in war times, but it is 



If 


k 


m 


^^H^ !^^'^«a ^F' <«t^i^Kiit^-^g|i8B 


f 




r^^^^^^^^^^^%^jJ 


\z - 




"^^fl 



U. S. UffiLial 



THE CAMP MESS 



a dreary business to stand in line and march in to 
dinner with a thousand other men. " Better a dinner 
of herbs where love is," said the wise man in the Book 
of Proverbs, and thousands of home-coming boys echo 
his words. 

If the home cook is to be so held in honor, she 
must have the knowledge which the army cook gained. 
She must have all his virtues and add to them the 



112 FOOD AND LIFE 

charm of home cooking and home service. Girls and 
women are not the only home cooks. Even as Gareth 
took his turn at kitchen service when he went as a 
page in King Arthur's hall, so boys are taking their 
term of kitchen training, that they may be capable 
of providing for themselves in an emergency and so 
be independent all their lives. Of what good are the 
best kitchen or the choicest ingredients in the world 
if there is no cook to use them ? Is a boy or man to 
condemn himself to raw food if there are no girls 
or women about? The army did not think so. The 
modern boy does not think so. Boy Scouts can go off 
on a camping trip and cook most excellent meals for 
themselves. They help their mothers with the heavy 
jobs of kitchen work at home and surprise her by 
turning cook when she is ill or absent. If we are to 
be masters of our own part of the food business, each 
one of us had better learn all that can be picked up at 
home or outside the home about cooking. 

It takes a whole alphabet to go the rounds of some 
occupations. Cooking falls into Cs. We begin with 
the Cook. To be a good cook one must be clean 
and keep everything about the preparation of food 
clean. " 'T is by his cleanliness a cook must please," 
said old Dr. King in his " Art of Cookery," written 
more than two hundred years ago. We are still surer 
of this fact, for when he wrote no one dreamed of the 
germs and bacteria which are just waiting to do harm 
if things are not kept pure and clean. No one knew 



KITCHEN SERVICE II3 

how flies pick up dirt and disease on the cushioned 
balls of their feet and carry it to the next article of 
food on which they may happen to light. In a public 
bakery or food shop everything has to be kept clean. 
This is so important that it is required by law. We 
are still allowed to be the ones who make the law in 
our own homes, but for health's sake we must observe 
it none the less carefully. 

Cooking is a craft. It is an art that requires knowl- 
edge and skill. To become a craftsman — that is, a 
skilled worker at any handwork or trade — should 
always be regarded as a great achievement. The boy 
who in the Middle Ages had served his apprentice- 
ship and won his place as a craftsman in any line of 
handwork was entitled to many privileges. Cooking 
is a simple craft. It is not hard to learn if we may 
learn it by practice and at the elbow of a skilled cook. 
It is an art or craft worthy our best attention, for on 
it depends the health and happiness of the household. 
To the cook falls the planning of the meals. The food 
to be served must be so portioned that there are fuel 
foods and life foods in good measure ; its ingredients 
must be combined attractively and in a way that saves 
and brings out the best nourishment in each; all the 
dishes must be ready to serve at one and the same 
minute. The hot things must be hot, the cold things 
thoroughly chilled. Sweets and sours must be put 
together to please our sense of taste. The good cook 
knows all about tastes and flavors. It is said that the 



114 FOOD AND LIFE 

admitted leadership of French cooks in their craft is 
due to their highly cultivated appreciation of tastes 
and flavors. 

There are four main tastes : sweet, sour, bitter, and 
salt. Sweets we taste at the tip of the tongue; sour, 
at the sides ; bitter, at the back ; and salt, over nearly 
the whole tongue. When we mix foods to bring out 
the flavor, we do one of three things. We keep one or 
other of these tastes separate and distinct, unmixed 
with anything else, as in salt fish or sweet desserts. 
Or, second, we plan a meal so that wc get one taste 
after another in quick succession. Or, third, we put 
them together so that one takes away the sharp effect 
of the other. For instance, we put sugar with cranber- 
ries or apples in making cranberry or apple sauce, the 
sweet of the sugar to oppose the sour of the cranberry 
or the apple and make of the two together a taste 
which we like. We put sugar in lemonade or tea for 
the same reason. Foods like potato, bread, and 
cereals are useful because they do not have a highly 
pronounced taste of their own. We do not tire of 
them, and we can put a variety of more highly flavored 
foods with them. There is no end to what the good 
cook comes to know about appetizing combinations. 

When the cook has seen that everything is kept 
clean, which is the first C, when she has come to 
look upon cooking as a craft (making herself a skilled, 
intelligent worker) which is the second C, she must 
look after the calories to see that her family gets enough 



KITCHEN SERVICE 



115 



of energy taken into the body to match their energy 
output. Calories, the units of fuel value, are the third C. 

She will see, too, that her 
kitchen is conveiiient. We 
have new ideas nowadays 
about kitchen service. We 
used to say, " That is a good 
big kitchen"; we are learn- 
ing to say, " What a conven- 
ient little kitchen!" We are 
beginning to reckon kitchen 

work by the number of steps taken and to use every de- 
vice to make this work easy and swift. The big kitchens 
of the Middle Ages were planned and presided over by 





CONTENTS OF THE ARMY COOK S CHEST 
See also same chest closed, above and on page 117 



ii6 



FOOD AND LIFE 



men, who had under them a whole army of helpers. 
Labor meant little to them. They could have as many 
steps taken as they wished. When one person must 
take all the steps, convenience must be considered. 
Our smallest and most modern kitchens were planned 
and are used by men. They are the dining-car kitchen 




AN ARMY ROLLING KITCHEN 



and the army movable kitchen. In the picture you 
see a most compact and convenient type of army 
"rolling kitchen." It looks small. Yet it is intended 
to serve three hundred men and can take care of a 
considerably larger number. On it a total of 1 20 gal- 
lons of liquid food and 160 pounds of roast meat can 
be prepared at one time. The kitchen when spread 



KITCHEN SERVICE 



117 



out is shown here, giving an idea of its very complete 
equipment, even to the chest with the cook's utensils. 
We can plan the arrangement of our own kitchens so 
that the work may be done swiftly and easily. 

Lastly, the cook must see that the food, the table, 
and the manner of sei*ving have charm. That is what. 




THE SAME KITCHEN UNPACKED 



with all its science and labor, the army mess could not 
achieve. It is something that the simplest home table 
can easily achieve. The Japanese make of the serving 
of tea a ceremony which lends to a simple cup of tea a 
real distinction. The table that was spread for Little 
Two-Eyes had its white cloth and its silver spoon. 
This is where boys and girls can begin at once to help 



ii8 



FOOD AND LIFE 



the cook. They can bring the dishes into which the 
food is to be put and arrange them in the right places 
on the table. They can set the table with every fork 
and knife and spoon laid straight. They can pick 
flowers for the center of the table. Best of all they 
can bring cheerful faces to table. Then the cook 
will have her reward for all her work, for " the proof 
of the pudding is in the eating." A happy, well-fed 
family is the sign of a good cook. 

QUESTIONS 

What was the fue! value in calories of the soldier's ration ? 
How much was your ration in calories ? 
How much was a farmer's ration ? (See page 24.) 
How does a family table gain over a hotel or army mess ? 
What are the four main tastes ? How do we combine them in 
cooking ? 

What are the five C's which the cook must remember ? 




CHAPTER XVI 

FOOD AND MONEY 

All the money in the world would do us no good if 
there were no food. King Midas found that out. He 
was fonder of gold than of anything else in the world. 
When he was given a chance to speak his dearest wish, 
he wished that everything he touched might be turned 
to gold. His wish was granted, but how unhappy he 
was ! Every bit of food which he touched turned to 
gold before he could put it into his mouth. He arose 
from the breakfast table far richer in money than when 
he sat down but poorer in comfort, for he was hungry, 
and he had no prospect, with all his gold, of ever being 
able to satisfy that hunger with appetizing food. It 
took him only a few minutes to weary of the gift of the 
golden touch and rejoice when he was allowed to become 
an ordinary man again. This is a fairy story, but like 
many fairy stories it has a thread of truth in it. Money 
has no value in itself. Its only value is that we can 
exchange it for what we wish and need. Money is a 
social convenience and necessity. Robinson Crusoe 
alone on his island would find it of no value, while a 
fruit tree would be of great value because it could fur- 
nish him food. We all know this, but it is good for us 

119 



I20 FOOD AND LIFE 

to stop and think about it sometimes. With money 
rightly understood and put in its proper place, other 
things, like food, take their proper place, too. As you 
think about it I believe food will rise in your esteem, 
and money, mere money, will take a lower place. 

Food and money are always being put into the scales 
and balanced one against the other. You are doing it 
yourself every day. You go to the store to buy apples. 
" How much are apples worth to-day? " you ask. You 
are putting your money on one side of a scale in your 
mind and apples on the other. You are asking how 
many apples will balance in value the twenty-five cents 
you have in your pocketbook. When you are told the 
price, you will have found out how much your twenty- 
five cents is worth in terms of apples. At one time of 
year, when apples are plenty, your twenty-five cents 
will be worth twice as much in apples as at another 
time of year when they are scarce. It seems at first 
thought as though a quarter had a quarter's worth of 
value, whether it would buy so many apples or twice as 
many apples. But you know for yourself it has not. 
If you need a certain number of apples, you may have 
to give up two quarters for them instead of one. 
Your quarter will have shrunk in value since the last 
time you bought them. As a matter of fact the value 
of money in the world of business and commerce is 
being reckoned every day in terms of food value, just 
as the money in your pocketbook had to be reckoned 
in terms of apples. The reason for this is that people 



FOOD AND MONEY I21 

must have food. So food becomes a world standard of 
values. The price of food comes to be balanced with 
and counted as the worth of money. 

Let me give you an example of how this balancing 
of food and money works out in practical business. A 
man was trying in my hearing to prove to a customer 
the other day that the automobile for which he was 
salesman was cheaper than it was two years ago, although 
the price in dollars was the same. It cost one thousand 
dollars two years ago; it was costing one thousand 
dollars now. " Then how is it cheaper?" asked the cus- 
tomer. "It is cheaper," replied the salesman, " because 
wheat has gone up in price, and with it everything else 
has gone up." Wheat is the great staple crop of the 
United States. The price of wheat does in a way set 
the standard for other prices and so fix the value of the 
money in your pocketbook and mine. When wheat 
goes up in price, flour and bread and fodder for animals 
and beef and everything else begins to go up, too. It 
would take more than a thousand dollars in money to 
buy this year the same amount of wheat that could 
have been bought for a thousand dollars two years ago. 
But a thousand dollars would buy the same car. There- 
fore, said the automobile salesman, the car is cheaper 
now than it was two years ago. Because all people must 
have food, whether they have automobiles or not, food 
is a world standard of value. The prices of wheat are 
read every day with the greatest interest by men who 
are handling money all over the world. Your father 



122 FOOD AND LIFE 

could doubtless find them for you in almost any news- 
paper. Men are reading them to see how much their 
money is w^orth to-day and will be worth to-morrow, 
whether, as they say, "times are hard" or "times 
are easy." 

It is worth while to think about food and money in 
this way, in which the moneyed people of the world 
think about them, for you are going to be balancing 
food and money every day of your life. You nmst be 
fed. The two questions that will interest you will be 
How much money will it take to feed me? and How 
much money shall I have left when I have been fed ? 
We must have enough to eat ; but the less money we 
spend on food, the more we have for all our other needs. 
Money spent on food to keep ourselves well nourished 
is money well spent. Money spent on food beyond 
what we use or need is wasted money, for when it is 
gone we have nothing to show for it except, perhaps, 
doctors' bills if we have overcrowded our body machine. 
The facts you have learned in this book about the kinds 
of food your body needs will help you to get more 
and better food value for your money. 

If there is a choice between three foods which you 
might buy with your twenty-five cents, choose the one 
with the most food value. Take milk for an example. 
A quart of milk has, you remember, the same fuel 
value as nine ounces of round steak or eight eggs. Put 
your quarter on one side of the scale and see how much 
more milk you can get for it than steak and eggs. It is 



FOOD AND MONEY 



123 



foolish to burn expensive meat for fuel when cereals and 
their products (breakfast foods, rice, corn meal, flour, and 
bread) are as good for fuel and much cheaper. Get a bit 
of meat for flavor and for its life foods, but stoke your 
furnace with cheaper foods. A cup of cocoa has an 
amazing fuel value, yet cocoa is not at all expensive. 




ALIKE IN FUEL VALUE, UNLIKE IN PRICE 

Tea and coffee have practically no food value except 
as flavors, and they contain elements which are bad 
for growing boys and girls. 

People are becoming wiser in balancing their money 
against their food and getting the most value for the 
money they are spending. But there is much that they 
do not yet know. Boys and girls can learn these facts 
and be a real help in the family buying. When the 
price of milk went up a few cents in New York City 
in war time, the wise people kept right on buying milk, 



124 



FOOD AND LIFE 



for they knew that with the way other foods were going 
up in price milk would give more food value even at 
fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen cents a quart than other foods 
they could buy. But in the poorer districts of the city 
only half as much milk was bought as in ordinary times 
at the usual price. Those people thought they were 

saving money by 
cuttingtheirmilk 
orders. Probably 
most other foods 
which they were 
buying cost more 
than milk for an 
equal food value. 
But they did not 
know it. This 
book is to tell 
you these facts, 
so that you will 
know them. If 
anyone told you that learning a few facts and putting 
them into practice would double the number of pen- 
nies or nickels or dimes in your pocket, you would 
be in a hurry to know what these facts were. 
When you come to buying food the facts about 
food values that you have already learned will in- 
crease the buying power of your money. They may 
help in your family-buying now, for if you will eat and 
enjoy plain, simple foods, your parents will not have to 




FOOD AND MONEY 



125 



buy fancy foods to keep you contented. Get your food 
bulk out of cereals and vegetables ; your flavor out of 
sugar and small portions of meat, out of fruits and the 
more fancy foods ; and your all-round nourishment out 
of milk, with some eggs cooked in your food. Eat all 




A WEEKLY MARKET IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 

the foods in their season. These are the rules for eating 
that will make your money worth more in food-buying. 
Selling is the second part of the story of food and 
money as it concerns you, for if you are raising food 
you may very likely have something to sell. To raise 
food and then sell it to your neighbors or at local stores 
is as good patriotism as it is good business. You are 
creating or cultivating food that would not otherwise 
be created or cultivated. If you have more of it than 
you need, you are helping in Uncle Sam's food business 



126 FOOD AND LIFE 

when you put it on the market. It matters not 
whether you are seUing pigs that you have raised or 
eggs or butter or vegetables. People are buying every 
one of these products from someone. If your product 
is good, clean, and sold at a fair price, they might as 
well buy of you. They will be glad to do so if you are 
one of Uncle Sam's food army, wearing his badge of 
service. Remember that part of the business of selling 
is to find a market that is not overstocked. 

Saving is the third part of the story of food and 
money. It is a wicked waste to buy food and then let 
part of it spoil or throw it away mixed in with real 
waste. In preparing food the good cook uses every 
nourishing bit of the materials she has bought. At 
table everyone must follow the " law of the clean plate," 
taking only what he intends to eat and then eating it 
to the last scrap. In the army they put boys who did 
not follow the " law of the clean plate," but left good 
food on their plates, at a separate table, which was soon 
nicknamed the " hog table." Here they were some- 
times given their own left-overs to eat, sometimes 
provided with stated amounts of food instead of being 
left to dish out their own portions. 

We must not make it necessary to have a special 
table for us. Left-overs from the main dishes must be 
made over into appetizing dishes. " Don't feed your 
garbage pail at the expense of your pocketbook," said 
Mr. Hoover during the war. It is good doctrine for 
us all to remember when we think of food and money. 



FOOD AND MONEY 



127 



One other way to save is to lay up for the future. This 
will be described in the next chapter. 

QUESTIONS 

What do we mean when we say that money is a social convenience ? 

How do we sometimes reckon the value of money in terms of the 
food it will buy ? 

How can you sometimes double the food value of the money in 
your pocketbook ? 

How can we so spend our money as to get an all-round diet ? 
(See chart, p. 177.) 

What is the " law of the clean plate " ? 




CHAPTER XVII 
FOR FUTURE USE 

As winter follows summer, so the storing of food 
must follow the harvesting of crops. Man lives on a 
daily-ration plan, but food does not fall at his feet like 
manna from heaven, an equal amount each day in the 
year. It comes by the seasons, and in its season a 
portion of each crop must be put away for the months 
ahead. The squirrel knows this and works diligently, 
storing away nuts for winter. A dog buries a bone 
for to-morrow. A fable tells the sorry story of the 
grasshopper that sang all summer while the ants were 
hard at work laying up winter supplies and then went 
to the ants in winter pleading for food. " What did 
you do all summer?" asked the ants, sternly. "I sang," 
replied the grasshopper. Nature showers a wealth of 
food upon us. It is for us to save as well as sing 
during the months of her bounty. 

Left to themselves most foods do not keep more 
than a few hours or days. The processes within them- 
selves which resulted in their growing and ripening 
do not stop all at once but continue, bringing them 
soon past the stage where they are palatable. In all 
living tissue there are tiny life forms, so small that 

they can be seen only through the microscope, called 

128 



FOR FUTURE USE I 29 

bacteria, yeasts, and molds. These forms of life must 
be killed if the food is to be kept from decay. When 
they have been killed, the food is sterile. Sterile 
food will keep indefinitely if closed away from the air. 




FISH IN COLD STORAGE 



Except for a slight loss of flavor it will have the same 
taste and appearance when we open it as it did when 
we closed it months before. It must be kept from the 
air, for the air is full of tiny forms of life. You have 
heard them called germs. They will attack any food 
which is wnthin their reach. Like other plants they 
need for their life warmth, food, and moisture. Like 
other plants they cannot live in more than their 



130 FOOD AND LIFE 

normal temperature, but are killed by excessive heat 
or cold. On these facts depend the three methods of 
food preservation, — by cold, by heat, and by drying. 

Cold is the most common agent for protecting food 
from too rapid ripening or from spoiling. Food is put 
into the refrigerator, where the temperature is low. 
This method is used in homes to keep food for short 
periods ; it is used in great refrigerating plants to keep 
food for long periods. It is also used when food must 
be carried long distances. Milk, meat, and other food 
products come to us in refrigerator cars, kept at 
a temperature at which the tiny life forms cannot 
work. In homes food of certain kinds may be stored 
for long periods in cool, dry places. Apples, pears, 
potatoes, beets, cabbages, carrots, onions, and turnips 
are examples of the fruits and vegetables which may 
be stored in this way. Root vegetables and starchy 
fruits lend themselves best to this easy method of 
preservation. Moderate heat and comparative dryness 
are sufficient for them. 

Heat is the most effective and swift agent for kill- 
ing destructive life forms. Nothing, not even these tiny, 
persistent bacteria, can live through a few moments 
of great heat. Canning, preserving, and the making of 
jams and marmalades all require intense heat. Canning 
depends on heat, or in the cold-pack method on heat 
and cold, without the necessary addition of anything 
but water. Preserving requires the addition of sugar. 
Old-fashioned preserves used to be made on " pound 



FOR FUTURE USE I31 

for pound " recipes, a pound of sugar for each pound 
of the fruit to be preserved. Sugar is often added 
during the process of canning, but it is added chiefly 
for the flavor, not as a means of " keeping " the fruit. 
In preserving so much sugar was used for the actual 
" preserving," or " keeping," of the fruit that the sweet- 
ness often covered from the taste the real flavor of 
the fruit. Nowadays canning is preferred, as an 
easier and more economical method which keeps the 
original flavor. Both canning and preserving depend 
on heat as the agent for killing all the life forms. 
Water is put with the fruit or vegetable to make 
possible the heating, as either would burn if direct 
heat were applied. Last, but not least, the jars or 
cans must be quickly and tightly sealed from the air 
so that no outside life can attack their contents. 

Vinegar, salt, and spices are used as well as sugar 
to keep food for considerable periods of time. Like 
sugar they hinder the growth of any bacteria, molds, 
yeasts, or germs. They also add flavor. The name 
given to this way of treating food is pickling. Salt is 
used also as an assisting agent in connection with 
another method of food preservation, drying. 

Food-drying is an old process, probably the oldest 
method of food preservation in the w^orld. Early col- 
onists on the Atlantic seaboard followed the example 
of the Indians in drying their corn, meat, fish, and 
fruits. Lately, especially during and since the war, 
this simple method has been revived and extended 



132 



FOOD AND LIFE 



far beyond any former use. The government now 
sends out directions for home drying of fruits and 
vegetables just as it sends out canning instructions 
(see page 175). We have learned that much of our 
food is one-half, two-thirds, three-fourths, or nine- 
tenths water. Much of this water will evaporate under 
proper drying conditions. The dried part will then 




BEETS BEFORE AND AFTER DRYING 

keep almost indefinitely if packed away from the dust. 
A pasteboard box or a strong paper bag will serve to 
hold the dried products, as they do not need. the care- 
ful sealing required for canned fruits and vegetables. 
In the home this is a convenient, inexpensive, and 
easy way to take care of small amounts of fruit 
or vegetables which might otherwise spoil. It may 
also be used for larger quantities. Dried products 
are useful in commerce, as they take little space 
and weigh little compared to the original products 



FOR FUTURE USE 



133 



and are therefore profitable and convenient to ship 
and to handle in retail stores. 

Processes of food preservation are important in 
the home. Boys and girls have done wonders within 
the last few years in their canning clubs. Mothers and 
daughters have formed clubs which report at county 
fairs thousands of jars to the credit of a small group. 




SPINACH BEFORE AND AFTER DRYING 

Farmers and housewives have looked on with astonish- 
ment while boys and girls from the canning clubs gave 
demonstrations of swift and successful use of govern- 
ment methods. Every boy and girl should feel a care 
that fruit and vegetables be not wasted under his or 
her eyes. Garden products not needed for the table 
should be put up by some one of these methods for 
future use. Nor need we depend on our own gardens 
only. We can watch our neighbors' gardens and the 
markets to buy any surplus. We can pick berries and 



134 



FOOD AND LIFE 



bring them home to be canned. Nothing will taste so 
good in the winter months as the contents of these 
jars, brought out one by one from the preserve closet. 
They will also prove far less expensive than similar 
canned products purchased at the stores. While all 




A CHAMPION DEMONSTRATION TEAM 

these methods of food-storing are home processes, 
they are also in far greater measure commercial 
processes. What used to be done in the home, and 
the home only, is now done on a big scale in the 
factory, and our home tables are the gainers. The 
good housewife likes, however, to depend on her 
own product. 

The United States is the largest producer and 
consumer of canned goods in the world. About 



FOR FUTURE USE 1 35 

one hundred years ago an Englishman brought to 
America a process, which was at the same time 
being patented in France, of seahng food in air-tight 
containers. It was demonstrated that food so sealed 
would keep indefinitely. The problem was how to 
manufacture air-tight containers inexpensively and in 
large quantities. Then came the tin can. Some day 
someone will write the romance of the tin can, that 
humble container of food which we take so for granted 
and treat with so little respect. The tin can lengthened 
man's food tether almost indefinitely. Before its manu- 
facture men who had gone in sailing vessels on long 
whaling expeditions, being away from home supplies 
of fresh food for a year or more, had often come home 
ill with diseases directly due to the lack of vegetables, 
fruits, and milk. Now they could carry these necessary 
elements of diet in cans and live healthily and well. 
" Canning," it has been said, " more than any other 
invention since the introduction of steam, has made 
possible the building up of towns and communities 
beyond the bounds of varied production." It has made 
possible the interchange of foods in the world's Food 
Market. The tin can has had its share in enabling us 
to sit at a world table. 

To store food wisely is a sign of thrift. Nature has 
given to America a wonderfully bountiful provision 
of food. To waste any part of it is a national sin. To 
save what we need for ourselves and to put the rest 
into such form that it can be sent to those in other 



136 



FOOD AND LIFE 



lands who need it is a national duty. By doing our 
personal share in seeing that food is saved, not wasted, 
we can help in this great patriotic service. 

QUESTIONS 

What conditions do bacteria require for their life ? 
By what processes may we talce away these conditions from them 
and so preserve food ? 

What is the difference between canning, preserving, and pickling ? 
How did the tin can help in the discovery of the north pole ? 
How did it help in the winning of the war ? 







Oh 



''ir-t f 



iiZ'- 



ocy 



CHAPTER XVIII 

FOOD AND HEALTH 

The Chinese have a custom of paying a doctor to 
keep them well. Our way has been to call a doctor 
only when we were ill, paying him for his sei*vices 
during the illness. Their way would be to pay 
a doctor so much a year. If the man keeps well 
the doctor has no further duties. In case of illness the 
doctor must attend his patient without extra charge. 
The Chinese are not suflficiently skilled in the medical 
knowledge which prevents disease to have this plan 
work out very well, but the plan itself is a splendid 
one. It is the modern idea which is being adopted in 
schools and factories, as well as in the army and 
navy, to prevent illness rather than to wait for it to 
come upon us. This book, and especially this chapter, 
takes the place of the Chinese doctor, whose business 
it is to see that his patients keep well. In the chapter 
on Food and Money it was said that the knowledge 
you gain from this book may double and triple the 
money in your pocketbook. If you will follow the 
rules given in this chapter they will save you doctors' 
bills and much discomfort. Good health depends in 
large measure on food. It is not hard to keep 
well, for good health is natural and normal; it is 

137 



138 FOOD AND LIFE 

much harder to get well after an illness. So pretend 
that you have called in your doctor and told him 
you want him to keep you well and that these are 
his instructions. 

The state of Massachusetts prints its " Food Rules 
for School Children " on a card which every child 
may have. We will take these rules as those of our 
doctor and test them by our knowledge to see if we 
can tell why the Department of Health prescribed 
them for the children of Massachusetts. 

1 . Begin the day by drinking a glass of zvater and drink at 
least six glasses dnring the day. 

Why was this rule put in ? We have learned that 
two thirds of our body weight is water. Every cell in 
our bodies, every tissue of living matter, needs water. 
Every bit of our food must be carried in liquid form 
to the hungry and thirsty parts of the body. Water 
helps, also, to keep up the body processes ; it helps to 
carry off waste. Solid food does not give us water 
enough. Nature helps children in keeping this rule 
by making them thirsty. 

2. Do 710 1 go to school ivitJiont breakfast. 

Why not ? Because you will be hungry ; not only 
will the conscious, thinking You feel hungry but the 
Body Self will need food. It has gone through a long 
night without food ; now it must have something on 
which to work. 



FOOD AND HEALTH 



139 



3. Eat regularly t/wce times a day. 

We learned in Chapter XI that the body becomes 
accustomed to having its food at regular times and 
adapts its ways to those times. Also, the body can 
handle its daily ration in three parts more easily than 
all at once. 

4. Eat sloxvly and ehew all food ivell. 

Why? First, to get the full taste. We shall not 
have that taste more than an instant at best. If we do 
not roll the food around a bit in our mouths, it may 
not touch those taste buds which are ready to appreci- 
ate it. We taste sweet, you remember, on the tip of the 
tongue, sour at the sides, bitter at the back, and salt 
nearly all over the tongue. If a food is a mixture, as 
most foods are, it must touch nearly the whole tongue 
for us to get its best flavor. Second, there is an agent 
in the mouth that wants to begin to split some kinds 
of food apart. We must give it a chance to do it. 
Third, the food must be chewed. Food for the stomach 
should be in a soft, pulpy form. Our teeth are put 
into the mouth to enable us to change the food from 
solid to semiliquid form. The saliva helps on the 
process. To send food down to the stomach in pieces 
and chunks of solid matter is not fair to the Body Self. 

5. Drink milk every day; four glasses are not too much. 
What are the reasons why we should drink milk? 

It is an all-round food, coming nearer to being a com- 
plete diet in itself than any other food. It has in it fat. 



FOOD AND HEALTH 141 

milk sugar, two desirable proteins, calcium for bones, 
iron, and vitamines for growth. It is easy for the body 
to take into itself. It fits in with other foods which we 
commonly eat and makes up in elements which they 
lack. It is economical. What else did we learn about 
milk ? To keep it clean, to keep it cool, and to keep it 
covered. This is because it is easily changed by those 
life forms, the bacteria, of which we were speaking in 
the last chapter. (See charts, pp. 172 and 173.) 

6. Eat some breakfast cereal every day. 

Why ? Cereals are good fuel foods. They give bulk. 
They have necessary life elements. They are not 
expensive. 

7. Eat some vegetable besides potato every day. 

Vegetables give bulk, mineral matter, vitamines, 
and some protein and fuel food. They supply a good 
variety in the diet. 

8. Eat bread and butter at every meal ; dark breads ai'e best. 

Bread and butter are almost a diet in themselves; 
dark breads have some food elements which are lost 
in making the flour white. 

9. Eat some fntit every day. Spend the pennies for apples 
instead of for candy. 

" An apple a day keeps the doctor away " is a good 
proverb to remember. Fruit gives to our diet min- 
erals, liquids, and some fuel food. It has a little life 
food, and it adds flavor and variety to our meals. 



142 FOOD AND LIFE 

lo. Do not eat candy betzvcen meals ; eat candy and other 
sweets only at the end of a regular meal. 

Candy is a concentrated fuel food of high heating 
capacity. Put in between meals it is likely to choke 







Nl 


W^k 


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i^^S^^ 






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M m^ < ^^H 




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A SCHOOL LUNCH IN NEW YORK 



the furnaces and stop you from getting the energy 
you want to keep your body processes going and let 
you run and play. 

1 1 , Do not drink tea or coffee ; it does the body no good 
but does it harm. 

Tea and coffee are taken for their flavor. They do 
not add food value, and they have in them elements 
which are particularly bad for growing boys and girls. 

12, Do not eat or tonch any food zvithout first zvashing the 
hands. 

13, Do not cat fruit zvithout first washing it. 



FOOD AND HEALTH 1 43 

14. Do not eat luith a spoon or fork tvhich has been nscd by 
another person xvithout first washing it. 

1$. Do not drink from a glass or cup ivJiicJi has been used 
by another persoji zvithout tvashing it. 

These last four rules are for that cleanliness in serv- 
ing and eating that must also be carried out in cook- 
ing. Dirt and disease germs are always floating about 
in the air. Food is going to be allowed entrance to 
the inside of our body. It must go in clean, not carry- 
ing with it germs which will do harm. 

The Child Health Organization in New York City 
puts its rules and principles in an alphabet, the " Child 
Health Alphabet." ^ Here are a few of its twenty-six 
food letters: 

B is for Bicttcr and Beans and Brown Bread ; 

Also for Baths before Breakfast or Bed. 
C is for Cereals and Cocoa too ; 

Consider the Calorics coming to You, 
I is for h'on in Spinach and Eggs, 

Builds Red Blood and Sinews for Strong Arms and Legs. 
M is for Milk, which makes Mtiscle and Bone ; 

Not less than a Pint every day till you 're grown. 
S is for Sugar and Sirup and Szveets ; 

Every Child must have occasional Treats. 
T is a Topic which Trouble begins ; 

Both Tea and Coffee for Children are Sins. 
W is for Water, the best thing to drink 

Between Meals as often as ever we think. 

1 Copyright, Child HeaUh Organization, 1918. 



144 



FOOD AND LIFE 



These are two ways to put the rules by which your 
food business is to be run into a form that will help 
you to remember them. Why not make a food card 
or an alphabet of your own ? Then you can repeat it 
over and over until you know it so well that you will 
always remember to act by it. 




CHAPTER XIX 

FOOD AND THE GOVERNMENT 

Group life makes for the convenience and comfort 
of each member of the group. This is true of a 
family and a small community. It is equally true of 
a nation. A single member of a group rarely gives 
as much to the group in the way of sei-vice as he 
gets from it in assistance and protection. No one of 
us ever renders to our government a quarter or a 
tenth or a hundredth part of the service which our 
government gives to us. 

This is especially true in regard to our food. Our 
government did not wait until it called a citizen 
army from their homes and put them into camps 
to look after their food. It had been looking after 
the food of each member of that army in his home. 
In camp it could control his food. Before he went 
into camp it could only watch over and protect so 
far as was possible the food which he was likely to 
buy. It had watched over his milk, to make it pos- 
sible for him to buy clean and rich milk. It had 
inspected his meat at every stage, from its source 
until it was handed to him over the counter by a 
clerk. It had tested the contents of sample cans of 
food before the manufacturer was allowed to seal and 

145 



146 FOOD AND LIFE 

send his product. The government had not actually 
fed each man until he came into the army. But in 
so far as it could it had taken the part of the taster 
who used to taste the king's food before it was put 
on the table. It has done what it could to protect 
the man from taking a mouthful of food which was 
not clean, pure, and wholesome. 

Food protection is not new. We read in the laws 
of England as far back as 1773 that "a standard 
wheat loaf shall weigh three fourths of the wheat of 
which it is made." This means that only one fourth 
of any ingredient except wheat was allowed in the 
loaf of bread which the public baker might sell. The 
man whose bread was found to be below standard 
might be drawn through the streets on a hurdle 
with the offending loaf tied about his neck. So pub- 
lic a punishment would surely make him mend his 
ways in the future. 

If a family could raise all its own food, supervis- 
ing every process through which it is put, it could 
protect itself. At least the family would be respon- 
sible for any lack of cleanliness or any impurity in 
the process or the finished product. Many hands 
must touch it before it comes to our tables. 

As soon as people begin to exchange food, they 
lose direct knowledge of the food in its journey from 
its source to its destination. When this food ex- 
change comes to take place in a county, a state, 
and a continent, a single person cannot trace his 



FOOD AND THE GOVERNMENT 



147 



food. Food inspection must then be taken over by 
the government. There must be pure-food laws. We 
have seen how food is made up of many elements. 
For the sake of greater profit or for the sake of keep- 
ing food longer from spoiling, manufacturers and men 




A MINNESOTA CHAMPION TEAM 

who handle food in large quantities are tempted to 
substitute one element for another in food in a way 
that is not fair to the person who buys it. There 
may also be danger to his health. The government 
takes account of all these possibilities. It instructs 
the makers of canned goods to print on the label of 
each can a statement of what is in the can. The 



148 FOOD AND LIFE 

buyer may then know exactly what he is buying. 
It makes out general requirements, which are like 
the recipes in cookbooks, as standards for flour and 
milk and similar staple foods. We should be very 
grateful to the men who worked for many years to 
get pure-food laws on our statute books and are on 
the lookout to see that they are enforced. 

The land of a people is its wealth. The care of 
the land is in the hands of the farmer. He holds 
the land as trustee for a hungry world. Out of the 
land occupied by the farmer must come not only the 
necessary food for himself and his family but also 
a surplus for the markets of the world. Farmers 
of the twentieth century have done splendid serv- 
ice in increasing the crops from the land. In this 
the government has helped and encouraged them. 
To take crops from the land as coal is taken from 
a mine is to make the land poor for the future. 
From fertilizers the land gets back the needful ele- 
ments which crops have taken from it. To plant 
crops which need one kind of soil on land fitted 
for another kind of crop is to fail to get the best 
from the land. From being an occupation by which 
one might earn a living farming has become a science. 
On the farmer rests the responsibility for feeding the 
world. The government does well to recognize him 
as the chief partner in its food business and give 
him the benefit of all its stores of knowledge and 
experience. Every boy and girl who has even a tiny 



FOOD AND THE GOVERNMENT 



149 



garden may get the help and advice of the govern- 
ment through the Department of Agriculture, Wash- 
ington, D. C. Farming is the most important and 
most necessary business in the world. Everyone 
who chooses it for his or her vocation comes under 
the special notice and protection of the government. 




READY FOR WORK 



Over in France there was at the headquarters a 
huge bulletin board on which were hung reports of 
the quantities of food in every army depot in France. 
It was kept up to date by a constant shifting of the 
reports. Anyone looking at that board could tell 
exactly the amount of food available for the army 
at any given time or place. The government at 
Washington has similar knowledge of all the food 
in this country. It publishes monthly surveys, which 



I50 



FOOD AND LIFE 



farmers and market men may receive, showing how 
much food of every kind is on hand. It tells how 
many bushels of wheat or pounds of meat or butter 
are in storage, how many are being moved, and how 
many will probably be available in the near future. 
Such information, gathered from all over the coun- 
try, puts the government in a position where it can 
plan for and advise its citizens. It is as if the depart- 
ment in Washington were on a mountain top, look- 
ing out over its fields and warehouses. From this 
mountain top it makes its survey, considering the 
feeding of millions of people as if they were a unit, 
a single family. 

In war time the people of the United States taught 
themselves and the world a wonderful lesson in de- 
mocracy. Looking out from Washington and regard- 
ing the people of the United States as a unit, the 
people saw that their food supply must be treated 
as a whole and portioned out with infinite care if all 
the people were to be well fed and the necessary 
amount of food sent abroad. So the government 
added to its usual departments for protection and 
advice and assistance a Food Administration. Food 
control by a government is nothing new. Every 
autocratic ruler down the centuries had practiced 
food control by some arbitrary rationing system. It 
was - the glory of our democracy that the people 
responded, went more than halfway to meet the gov- 
ernment. So readily and willingly did they respond 




Savet 

products of the LaM 

Eat more fish — ' 

they Feed themselves./ 



-. ,}H^.. i.Mi^y 



UNITED STATES POOO ADMINIS TRATl 



152 FOOD AND LIFE 

to the appeals of Mr. Hoover and his fellow admin- 
istrators for food conservation that the element of 
necessary control by the government was completely 
overshadowed by the voluntary self-rationing of the 
people. As the recruit in the army camps was taught 
that in saluting his of^cers he was saluting the author- 
ity which as a free citizen of the republic he had 
himself had a hand in setting up, so the people in 
accepting their food rations recognized that this was 
no arbitrary order from above. Their own government 
was acting for them. It was showing them how to 
use well and wisely the food in their possession. If, 
as has been said, food is the test of democracy, our 
democracy met the test and came out victorious. 

QUESTIONS 

How does the government protect food ? 

Why must we depend on the government to look after our food ? 

How is the farmer trustee of the land ? 

How did the people meet the government's war-time food control ? 



CHAPTER XX 

AT A WORLD TABLE 

The graduates of one of the great colleges live in 
almost every state in the Union. Each year the gradu- 
ates of different sections of the country meet in some 
city convenient to them all and hold a banquet. This 
year they planned that all these scattered groups should 
hold their annual banquet in their accustomed cities at 
exactly the same moment. This meant that some of 
the banquets had to be held at unusual times of day 
because of the differences in standard time. It was 
further arranged that all these banquet tables should 
be connected by telephone, each guest having at his 
plate a telephone receiver of his own. The result was 
that friends two thousand miles apart sat listening at 
the same moment to the same after-dinner speeches. 
The group in San Francisco spoke to the group in 
New York City, and Chicago, Seattle, and Baltimore 
listened and took their turns in the conversation. 
Though they were hundreds of miles apart, in thirty- 
five different cities, these graduates were, so far as 
communication was concerned, sitting at the same table. 

Newspapers serve the same purpose as telephone 
receivers in making us remember that while we are 

_ 153 



154 FOOD AND LIFE 

sitting at our own tables we are also sitting at a world 
table. Even as we buy at a world market and eat from 
a table spread with foods from. all over the world, so 
we sit at a table at which is seated with us all the rest 
of the hungry world. 

War has brought the picture of a world table freshly 
to our minds. The United States gave its splendid 
example of voluntary self-rationing because of the 
appeal of other members of the world family who were 
rising from the table hungry because there was not 
food enough to satisfy them. The United States had 
food in plenty for itself. It deliberately set aside a part 
of that food for the needs of the warring nations. It 
sent out of the country food which it might have eaten, 
because Americans would not stuff themselves with 
plenty while others starved. This was a beautiful thing 
to do ; but it was the only thing to do. No man or 
woman or child could have enjoyed food if he had been 
actually sitting at table with hungry Belgians or Ser- 
bians or Poles or Armenians who were not being fed. 
The danger was that we should forget these other 
members of the world family because they were out of 
sight. That is the danger always. We need to stir our 
ipiaginations to picture this world table. When we are 
tempted to leave good food on our plates or to throw 
away a piece of bread, we must train ourselves to see 
some hungry child reaching out for bread and not get- 
ting it because there is not enough to go around. The 
chief lesson of sitting at a world table is not to waste. 



AT A WORLD TABLE 155 

If we eat what is set before us we release for sending 
overseas other foods which are needed there. 

The sharing of food is the sign of a new world 
brotherhood for which men everywhere are hoping and 
working. Science has made it possible for the world 
to become one, sitting at one table. A man can speak 




SERVING TEA IN JAPAN 



from Wales to Australia by wireless message in a fif- 
teenth part of a second. Surely no nation need go 
hungry without other nations' knowing of its need. Our 
land and ocean systems of transportation make it pos- 
sible to send food quickly. Our new scientific farming 
makes it possible to raise food to feed adequately the 
nations of the earth. The land has never been worked 
as it can be worked. Two blades of grass can be 
made to grow where one grew before. A small plot 



156 



FOOD AND LIFE 



of ground properly enriched and tended and protected 
from pests will yield far more than it ever yielded under 
old farming methods. Yet without the vision of a world 
table and the desire for a world brotherhood science 
alone would be slow in saving the world from famine. 




BOY-SCOUT GARDENERS 



To-day we are all summoned to take part in a new 
crusade — to drive famine from the earth. Famine is a 
dreadful specter that has always stood just behind the 
poor man and the nation whose food supply was barely 
equal to its needs. It has been ready to pounce 
on its victims the moment wages ceased or a crop 
failed, bringing with it attendant woes of disease 
and anarchy. It is the enemy of law and order, the 
foe of prosperity and contentment. 



AT A WORLD TABLE 



157 



To drive famine from the earth more food must be 
raised. Even before the war the world was in danger 
of going hungry. The population of the globe is increas- 
ing. Its food supply must therefore increase. Every 
human being must eat ; he must be a consumer of food. 
The more need there is of food, the more producers 
there must be. " Everyone who creates or cultivates 
a garden helps, and helps greatly, to solve the problem 
of the feeding of the nations," said President Wilson. 
To solve this problem there must be more than gar- 
deners ; there must be farmers. The farmer is the 
leader in the world crusade against famine. To be a 
food producer is to be an active partner in the world s 
food business, and active partners were never more 
needed. Boys and girls should think, when they are 
choosing what they will be, whether they can choose 
this for their vocation. If they can, they will be doing 
a splendid service. 

To drive famine from the earth there must be less 
waste. Here everyone can take a part. " This is the 
time for America to correct her unpardonable fault of 
wastefulness and extravagance. Let every man and 
woman assume the duty of careful, provident use and 
expenditure as a public duty." 

To drive famine from the earth there must be world 
brotherhood. Here boys and girls can help. When 
boys and girls do anything, they do it with all their 
might. They do it joyfully as an adventure. They do 
it all together as they would play a game. They do it 



158 



FOOD AND LIFE 



in the spirit of King Arthur's knights, who " rode 
abroad redressing human wrong." For them 

every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 




U. S. Official 
AMERICAN SOLDIERS SHARING WITH FRENCH CHILDREN 

They gloried in a vision of a world protected and puri- 
fied by their valor, and in that vision wrought 

All kind of service with a noble ease 
That graced the lowliest act in doing it. 

To raise food or save food without a vision, as many 
worthy folks are doing, is good service, but it is not 



AT A WORLD TABLE 



159 



the kind of service that makes of the world one brother- 
hood. For that we must have the vision. Boys and 
girls are the ones who can catch the vision and work 
for it. They can keep before themselves and others the 
vision of all the world seated at one table, repeating 
together the familiar prayer, " Give us this day our 
daily bread." They can help to answer that prayer 
for the world, and so become, like Arthur's knights, 
" the fair beginners of a nobler time." 




PARTNERS 

To be good partners in the -world's Food Business, "we must 

Remember 

To eat with enjoyment food which the body needs •- 
To buy wisely, getting the best food value for our 

money ; 
To prepare food carefully and serve it attractively ; 
To raise from the land as much food as we can ; 
To store for the future the crops in their seasons ; 
To save food from waste in our homes and in 

our communities ; 
To honor the industries and workers contributing 

to our world table ; 
To make ourselves worthy to sit at the world table, 
By reminding ourselves always to save and share. 
By keeping before ourselves and others the vision 

of a world table, at which everyone is fed, so 

that in our time famine may be driven from 

the world. 

As partners in the world's Food Business 
We so covenant. 



FACTS AND FIGURES 

FOR TEACHERS AND PUPILS 

I 

WEIGHT AS A TEST 

For growing boys and girls weight is the quickest and surest 
index of health. The child who has become interested in the 
successful management of his own personal department of the 
food business should be taught to regard his weight and, more 
important still, his rate of gain in weight as the test by which 
he may know whether he is supplying to his body the right 
kinds and amounts of food. Children should be encouraged to 
keep their monthly weight records, comparing them frequently 
with the standards in the tables given below. A " Class- Room 
Weight Record " containing these tables, with spaces for monthly 
records for a group of children throughout the school year, is 
issued under the authority of the Bureau of Education of the 
Department of the Interior and may be obtained at a nominal 
cost through that office in Washington or through the Child 
Health Organization, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The 
latter organization, which is acting with the National Child 
Labor Committee in promoting interest in this important sub- 
ject, has other material useful in the schoolroom, including tags 
to be used in weighing contests, to carry the facts into the 
children's homes. 

161 



l62 



FOOD AND LIFE 



Right Height and Weight 
FOR Boys ^ 



Right Height and Weight 
FOR Girls ^ 



Height c 


10 


II 


12 


13 


14 




Height 


9 10 II 


12 


13 


■4 


inches yr 


s. yrs. 


yrs. 


yrs. 


yrs. 


yrs. 




inches 


yrs. yrs. yrs. 


yrs. 


yrs. 


yrs. 


45 4 


9 










45 


49 








46 5 


I 












46 


51 








47 5 


3 54 












47 


52 53 








48 5 


5 56 


57 










48 


54 55 56 








49 5 


8 58 


59 










49 


56 57 58 








50 6 


60 


61 


62 








50 


58 59 60 


61 






51 6 


2 63 


64 


65 








51 


61 62 63 


64 






52 6 


4 65 


67 


68 








52 


64 65 66 


67 






53 6 


7 68 


69 


70 


71 






53 


67 68 68 


69 


70 




54 7 


71 


72 


73 


74 






54 


69 70 71 


7- 


73 




55 7 


3 74 


75 


76 


77 


78 




55 


72 73 74 


75 


76 


77 


56 7 


7 78 


79 


80 


81 


82 




56 


76 77 78 


79 


80 


81 


57 • 


. 81 


82 


83 


84 


85 




57 


... 81 82 


83 


84 


85 


58 . 


. 84 


85 


86 


87 


88 




58 


... 85 86 


87 


88 


89 


59 • 


• 87 


88 


89 


90 


92 




59 


... 89 90 


91 


93 


94 


60 . 


• 91 


92 


93 


94 


97 




60 


94 


95 


97 


99 


61 . 




95 


97 


99 


102 




61 


99 


lOI 


102 


104 


62 . 




100 


102 


104 


106 




62 


104 


106 


107 


109 


63 • 




105 


107 


109 


III 




63 


109 


III 


112 


"3 


64 . 






"3 


"5 


117 




64 




"5 


"7 


118 


65 • 








120 


122 




65 




117 


119 


120 


66 . 








125 


126 




66 




119 


121 


122 



Rates of Gain 

A boy should gain about eight ounces a month from the time he is 
eight years old until he is twelve years old ; then he should begin to 
gain at the rate of sixteen ounces a month for the next three or four 
years, returning to a gain of eight ounces a month from the ages of 
sixteen to eighteen years. 

A girl should gain about eight ounces a month from the time she 
is eight years old until she is eleven years old, twelve ounces a month 

1 Prepared by Dr. Thomas D. Wood 



Class-Room Weight Record 


Name 


*€. lUl 


** Wd^ 


YEAH ACTTIAL WEIGHT .|1 


Sej*. 


IXt. 


No.. 


Ita, >.. P*. U 


„. ^. -„ 1 M. 






































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































HBGHT ID.) WEIGHT TABLE for BOTS 


ABOUT WHAT A BOT SBOUl, 
EACH MONTH 


OOilH HEIGHT 1 


ml WEIGHT TABLE for GRLS 




J j< .-i. Ivy ;;!,■; 




/. .: X. ji v; vi A *|tt|.", ,-, 


nil: 
i s ; : : . 

i^^^l is ii 




fT'f 




\i i 1 1 = 

'°^ : : : 

J" s .'I s 

""■ 3 ;;: S 
J) OAm S :::: ::n: 

• 01 S ::■.:::=- 

«« 1 

tius dM : 


llil f 

jlifi h.. 


















ABOOTWBA 


rAcntLSHom 

CHMOHTH 










! : : rjsisis s 


l.i«.»_ 






Tit Md d< 


^ "="•■" 


DEPARTMENT OF THE INTQUOR 1 




Heisht md weisht to be ulten in house clothen, witboul shoe» Weigh on the same daj e»cb mooth. Age the oearest binhitar 
EKi chUd to enter his o»n weight. -~ 



1 64 FOOD AND LIFE 

from the time she is eleven years old until she reaches the age of 
fourteen, eight ounces a month from the ages of fourteen to sixteen, 
and four ounces a month from the ages of sixteen to eighteen years. 

In Chapter I attention is called to the child's weight as 
showing the part he has already taken in the food business. 
From this time on he should be taught to regard the frequent 
taking of his weight and the keeping of a record of it as a busi- 
ness man would regard monthly stock-taking or the making up 
from his books of a trial balance. Emphasis should be laid 
on the fact that it is not necessarily the amount of food eaten 
which is affecting this record but the kind of food, not the 
expense but the proportion of needed elements. The records 
should not be taken too seriously, but should be treated through- 
out as a "trial balance." Other conditions besides food enter into 
the matter, but food is one of the chief elements, as the child 
who is reading this book will readily see. Moreover, it is the ele- 
ment in which the child may take the most active part by con- 
trolling his appetite and directing his tastes into right channels. 

In Chapter IV weight takes on a new interest as an index of 
the number of calories required. Here, as elsewhere, the figures 
are introduced chiefly to arouse interest. The final impression 
is to be of the importance of weight as an index — on the one 
hand, of food requirements, and on the other hand, of health. 



II 

THE GARRISON RATION WITH ITS SUBSTITUTES 
1918-1919 

From this garrison ration, referred to in Chapter II, the 
child will get his first idea of an exact, scientific ration and of 
the principle of substitutes. The basis of all substitution in 



FACTS AND FIGURES 



165 



diet is the actual food value for body needs. The closer the 
resemblance of a substitute to the article which it replaces in 
flavor, appearance, and texture, the more satisfactory it is from 
the standpoint of human choice and instinct, but as a substitute 
its only essential is that it shall be as nearly as possible equiva- 
lent in food value. This point may be emphasized later in the 
choice of foods from the point of view of economy. 

Following the style of this table, children will enjoy making 
out daily and weekly rations. It is suggested that they group 
the articles of their diet as fuel foods and life foods. 



Garrison Ration with Substitutive Articles for Overseas 



Component Articles and Quantities 



Substitutive Articles and Quantities 

Mutton, fresh 20 oz. 

Bacon 12 oz. 

Ham 12 oz. 

Meat, canned when impracti- 
cable to furnish fresh meat . 16 oz. 

Hash, corned beef when im- 
practicable to furnish fresh 

meat 16 oz. 

Turkey, dressed and drawn on 
Thanksgiving Day and on 
Christmas Day; when practi- 
cable, drawn 16 oz. 

Turkey, undrawn 19 oz. 

Pork, salt — in Alaska only . . 16 oz. 

Beef, salt — in Alaska only . . 22 oz. 

Cheese 4 oz. 

Sausage 12 oz. 

Fish, dried 14 oz. 

Fish, pickled 18 oz. 

Fish, canned 16 oz. 

Fish, fresh, drawn iS oz. 

Fish, fresh, undrawn . . . . 22 oz. 

Sardines 16 oz. 



Beef, fresh 20 oz. 



1 66 



FOOD AND LIFE 



Garrison Ration with Substitutive Articles for Overseas 
(Continued) 



Component Articles and Quantities 



Substitutive Articles and Quantities 

Bread, soft i8 oz. 

Bread, hard, to be ordered 
issued only when the in- 
terest of the government so 

requires i6 oz. 

Corn meal 20 oz. 

Hominy, fine 16 oz. 

Crackers, assorted 16 oz. 

Oatmeal 16 oz. 

Hops 08 oz. 

Yeast 08 oz. 

Yeast food 08 oz. 

Rice 1.6 oz. 

Beans, baked, when impracti- 
cable to cook meals .... 4 oz. 

Soup, canned 8 oz. 

Soup, powdered i oz. 

Soup, concentrated i oz. 

Farina 4 oz. 

Hominy 4 oz. 

Potatoes, canned 15 oz. 

Potatoes, sweet 20 oz. 

Potatoes, sweet, canned ... 1 5 oz. 

Vegetables, dehydrated . . . 5.5 oz. 

Onions, in lieu of an equal 
quantity of potatoes, but not 
to exceed 20 per cent of total 
issue. 

Tomatoes, canned, in lieu of 
an equal quantity of pota- 
toes, but not to exceed 
20 per cent of the total 
issue. 



Flour 18 oz. 



Baking powder 08 oz. 



Beans 



.4 oz. 



Potatoes 20 oz. 



FACTS AND FIGURES 



167 



Garrison Ration with Substitutive Articles for Overseas 
{Continued) 



Component Articles and Quantities 


Substitutive Articles and Quantities 


Potatoes {continued) 


Corn, sweet, canned, in lieu 
of an equal quantity of po- 
tatoes, but not exceeding 
20 per cent of total issue. 

Peas, green, canned, in lieu 
of an equal quantity of po- 
tatoes, but not exceeding 
20 per cent of total issue. 

Spinach, canned, in lieu of 
an equal quantity of pota- 
toes, but not exceeding 
20 per cent of total issue. 

Other fresh vegetables (not 
canned) when they can be 
obtained in the vicinity or 
transported in a wholesome 
condition from a distance, in 
lieu of an equal quantity of 
potatoes, but not exceeding 
30 per cent of total issue. 




Prunes i .28 oz. 


Apples, dried or evaporated 


1.28 oz. 




Jam, assorted 


Not to ex- 






Jelly, currant 
Apple butter 


ceed 50 per 
cent of total 


2.56 oz. 




Preserves, ass't _ 


issue 






Peaches, canned 


4 oz. 




Pears, canned 
Pineapple, canne 




4 oz. 
4 oz. 




d 


Coffee, roasted and 


Coffee, roasted, not ground . 


1. 1 2 oz. 


ground 1.12 oz. 


Coffee, green 


1.4 oz. 




Tea, black or green .... 


0.32 oz. 




Coffee, instantaneous . . . 


1. 1 2 oz. 




Cocoa 


1. 1 2 oz. 



1 68 



FOOD AND LIFE 



Garrison Ration with Substitutive Articles for Overseas 
{Continued) 



Component Articles and Quantities 


Substitutive Articles and Quantities 


Sugar 3.2 oz. 




Milk, evaporated, un- 
sweetened . . . . 2 oz. 




Vinegar 16 gill 


Pickles, cucumber, in lieu of 
an equal quantity of vine- 
gar, but not exceeding 50 
per cent of total issue . . 

Pickles, chowchow .... 

Pickles, mixed 


0.16 gill 
0.16 gill 
0.16 gill 


Salt 0.64 oz. 






Pepper, black .... 0.04 oz. 




Lard 0.64 oz. 


Lard, substitute 


0.64 oz. 


Butter ....... 0.5 oz. 


Oleomargarine 


0.5 oz. 


Sirup 0.32 gill 


Molasses 


0.32 gill 




American Museum of Natural History, New York 
A TYPICAL DAILY FIELD RATION 
This should supply 4199 calories 



FACTS AND FIGURES 169 

III 

THE CALORIE 

The calorie of food tests is the Calorie, or '" large calorie," 
of the physicist, the amount of heat required to raise the tem- 
perature of one kilogram (2.2046 pounds) of water one degree 
centigrade. This is very nearly the same as the heat required 
to raise the temperature of four pounds of water one degree 
Fahrenheit. 

The child who weighs a quart of water will find that it 
weighs about two pounds. One calorie of heat will raise the 
temperature of two quarts of water about one degree Fahren- 
heit, always provided no heat is lost in the surrounding air or 
in the container. A common unit for food values is the 100- 
calorie portion, which amounts to an average helping at table 
of many foods. Such a portion gives in the body, by a rough 
estimate, heat equivalent to that involved in raising the tem- 
perature of a quart of water from the freezing to the boiling 
point. To drink a little over half a cup of milk is to release 
in the body heat-energy corresponding to that used in heat- 
ing a quart of ice-cold water until it boils. By comparisons 
like these some idea may be obtained of the amount of heat- 
energy involved in the processes of daily life. The pupil 
may be reminded that the body must be kept at a tempera- 
ture of 98.6 degrees, no matter what the temperature of the 
surrounding air. 

If the question arises as to how it is known that actual heat- 
energy is released, the method of food-testing in a calorimeter 
may be described. A carefully weighed sample of food is 
placed in a capsule within a steel vessel or bomb. The bomb 
is then charged with oxygen and is lowered, tightly closed, into 



170 



FOOD AND LIFE 



a larger vessel, where it is surrounded by a known weight of 
water. An electric spark starts combustion. The heat liberated 
in the process of the union between the food and the oxygen 
within the bomb raises the temperature of the surrounding 
water as surely as would a gas flame burning beneath the water. 
From such tests as these, carried out with minute accuracy, it 
has been found that a gram of pure protein or of pure carbo- 
hydrate yields in the body four calories of heat, and a gram of 
fat, nine calories. For purposes of simplicity protein has been 
classed for its essential qualities as a life food. It always con- 
tributes some fuel value for the body processes. If the body 
is short of fuel a larger proportion of protein will be used as 
fuel, but to force the body into using an excess of protein as 
fuel when cheaper and more satisfactory fuels may be easily 
supplied is like stoking a furnace with a precious substance 
which will burn but which is more needed for other purposes. 
The teacher who is clear on these points will make such use 
of them with the class as occasion requires. 

IV 

THE 100-CALORIE PORTION 

A general sense of food as fuel is all that is needful for 
children. The interest of the idea usually arouses the curiosity 
of the child as to the fuel value of the food he eats. The list 
of lOO-calorie portions here presented will satisfy this interest 
and serve as a basis for practical home application of the facts 
learned. A lOO-calorie portion is, in most of the cases given, 
an average serving of the food listed. The pupil who has come 
to a sense of money values of food can easily see the differ- 
ences in relative cost of the various portions. 



FACTS AND FIGURES 171 

1 small corn-meal mufifin 

2 slices of white bread ^ inch thick by 3I inches square 

3 small slices of Graham bread 

1 cubic inch of butter 

A medium-sized ripe banana 
A large boiled egg 

2 scant level tablespoonfuls or one heaping tablespoonful 
of granulated sugar 

3^- lumps of sugar 

I cup of milk (whole) 

I I cup of milk (skim) 
I to ^ cup of cocoa 

2^ teaspoonfuls of peanut butter 
18 single medium-sized peanuts 
i cup of scalloped potatoes 
^ cup of baked custard 

1 cup bread custard pudding 

^ cup of apple-tapioca pudding 

2 large molasses cookies 

2 medium-sized chocolate creams 
i^ tablespoonfuls of apple sauce 
^ cup macaroni and cheese 

I cup of oatmeal (cooked) 

I large apple 

^ large apple baked with two tablespoonfuls of sugar 

1 baked apple served with whipped cream 

3 or 4 unstoned dates 

4 medium-sized prunes 

2 cooked prunes with two tablespoonfuls of prune juice 
I large bunch of grapes 

1 cup of grape juice 

I large orange 

I medium-sized potato 



172 FOOD AND LIFE 

V 
TASTE AND SMELL 

Children will be interested to prove by experiment on them- 
selves the important part smell plays in relation to the palatability 
of food. At a dinner table where the subject came up recently 
guests promptly tested their powers of taste by eating highly fla- 
vored mints with eyes and nostrils closed. They were amazed 



AMOUNT OF LIME IN 

I CUP OF MILK 

j/z CUP OF CARROTS 



I EGG 



2 SLICES OF BREAD 



to find themselves unable to distinguish between a variety of 
kinds. Experiments along these lines help to emphasize the 
truth that excellent food value may reside in a food which 
does not especially appeal in flavor or other appetizing qualities. 

VI 

MILK 

Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the importance 
of milk as a chief feature of diet for children. The accom- 
panying charts indicate two points which will interest and im- 
press children and adults. Because milk is a liquid we are 
inclined to think of it as a beverage rather than as a food. 



FACTS AND FIGURES 



173 



MILK IS A FOOD 

IT HAS MORE SOLIDS THAN ANY OF THE 
OTHER FOODS LISTED BELOW 



PERCENT O I 

MILK ^^B 



6 7 8 



10 11 12 13 



BEETS I 

CARROTS I 

SQUASH I 

PINEAPPLE I 

TURNIPS I 

OYSTERS I 

CABBAGE I 

RADISH I 

CAULIFLOWER 1 

SPINACH ] 

WATERMELON | 

PUMPKIN 

TOMATOES 

ASPARAGUS 



The length of each black line on the chart indicates the 
proportion of combined carbohydrate, fat, protein, and min- 
eral constituents in the food listed. This represents what we 
are accustomed to 
call the solid part 
of the food. The 
rest of the hundred 
per cent is water. 
When the water 
content of each of 
these foods is ana- 
lyzed, it exceeds by 
the amount indi- 
cated that of milk. 
The remainder of 
each line, as it 
could be extended 
on a wide black- 
board, might be 
labeled " Water." 
Milk is 87 per cent 
water ; the per cent 
of water in the 
other foods listed is 
in each case higher. 

Children are interested in lime (calcium) because it is needed 
for the building and renewing of bones, teeth, etc. The ordi- 
nary American diet is more apt, it is said, to be deficient in 
calcium than in any other element. Milk is by far the most 
important calcium-containing food (see chart, p. 172). On the 
other hand, the iron content of milk is low. 




CUCUMBER 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY 

DAIRY DIVISION 



174 FOOD AND LIFE 

Another method of approach to the milk question is the con- 
sideration of the dairy cow as the greatest animal food-producing 
machine in the world. The figures here given are from 
Leaflet O, issued by the Massachusetts Dairy Bureau, State 
Board of Agriculture. " Take, for example, a cow weighing 
looo pounds while in milking condition. Good dairymen do 
not consider a cow worth keeping unless she gives 6000 pounds 
or more of milk per annum. A cow weighing 1000 pounds 
and yielding 5000 pounds of milk per year produces five times 
her own weight in a food all of which is digestible, and all of 
which is not only the most complete food known but is also 
the least expensive among foods of animal origin. To produce 
Steer Beef requires 2I to 3 years ; to produce Baby Beef 
requires 6 to 8 months ; to produce Veal requires 6 to 8 weeks ; 
to produce Milk requires 12 hours." 

VII 
SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE GOVERNMENT 

The United States School Garden Army, with its slogan 

A Garden for Every Child, 
Every Child in a Garden, 

is the first national organization which children in school will 
be likely to join. Inquiries concerning its organization, badges, 
garden manuals, enlistment sheet, etc. should be addressed by 
the teacher to 

The United States School Garden Army 
Bureau of Education 

Department of the Interior 
Washington, D. C. 



FACTS AND FIGURES I 75 

Any organization of school children doing garden work is 
eligible for enlistment. The number of members in a company- 
is from ten to one hundred and fifty. The requirement for 
membership is the signing of an enlistment sheet in which the 
pupil agrees to raise one or more food crops and to keep 
records of his work and the results, reporting them to the 
teacher or garden supervisor. Bronze service bars, with varying 
insignia for privates and officers, are furnished to garden soldiers. 
Every pupil enlisting in the School Garden Army is also 
entitled to display a service flag. 

Gardening is the oldest and most essential of the arts. Long before 
the dawn of recorded history the human race became proficient in 
those garden practices that enabled it to subsist upon the products of 
the soil. . . . Under primitive conditions this great heritage of the race 
became the common property of each succeeding generation. It was 
passed along by the simple but efficient procedures through which all 
essential knowledge descended from one generation to another. In 
modern times, however, living has become so complex and specialized 
that the old methods are no longer pursued, and under the conditions 
now prevailing a knowledge of garden practice comes only to a few. 
The old heritage is still shown, however, in the universal love that 
children have for gardening. . . . The recent stress of world famine 
has shown the imperative need of restoring the art of gardening to 
the educational curriculum, and the nation-wide success of the School 
Garden Army has indicated the most efficient way of adapting the 
study to modern conditions. The basic idea of the School Garden 
Army is to make the study and practice of gardening so essential a 
part of each school system that every child shall know the joy of 
watching plants grow and of learning through experience the pro- 
ductive power of the soil. There is no thought that all these pupils 
shall become farmers, but there is an idea that they shall develop into 
better citizens through their knowledge and experience. — U. S. S. G.A. 
Leaflet 92. 



176 FOOD AND LIFE 

The Department of Agriculture at Washington issues many 
helpful bulletins and pamphlets. In extension work among boys 
and girls it cooperates with the State Boards of Agriculture, 
through which boys' and girls' canning clubs, pig clubs, and 
county-fair exhibits and demonstrations have been carried on 
with increasing interest and profit to all concerned. For 
special publications of this Federal Department of Agriculture, 
write to the 

Division of Publications 

Department of Agriculture 
Washington, D. C. 

or in case of any question to the 

Office of Information 

Department of Agriculture 
Washington, D. C. 

Be sure, however, to write also to the Board of Agriculture 
in your own state for information as to how boys and girls of 
the state are organized. 

VIII 

THREE MEALS A DAY 

While few children choose or plan their meals, most children 
regulate to a considerable degree their food consumption by the 
effect upon the family purchases of their likes and dislikes, 
their choices and preferences. It is therefore worth while to 
make definite and practical their interest in the subject by 
charts and demonstrations. A distinctive feature of this book 
is the grouping of the three classes of foods taken primarily 



FACTS AND FIGURES 



177 



for body-building and body-running as life foods. This brings 
to the child, in simple language, the new biological test of food 



y^vrZ-^^MJ^ 




^oequate 



values, which emphasizes the function of a food in its living 
condition and the proved effect of the food on living creatures, 
as the term fuel foods reflects the earlier chemical analysis of 
foods and their grouping by calorie content. 

In the chart "An All-round Diet" the basic division of foods 
as life foods and fuel foods is indicated at the center. This 



178 FOOD AND LIFE 

is interpreted in the terms, made familiar by many govern- 
ment publications, of "the five food groups" : (i) vegetables 
and fruits, (2) meats and meat substitutes, (3) cereals and 
other starchy foods, (4) sweets, (5) fats. This grouping is 
given in many articles, bulletins, and leaflets. It is useful as a 
practical guide, with its watchword : "' Choose some food from 
every one of the five groups daily and not too much from any 
one group." The proportions here given indicate roughly the 
amounts approved by general agreement for the average family 
or individual, while the budget division in the outer circle is 
based on careful studies made in New York City and outside in 
families of varying means living under many types of conditions. 
Another suggested proportion for a family is as follows : 



The amount spent for~ 
vegetables 
fruit 
milk 



-should equal -i 



'the amount spent for 
meat 
fish 
eggs 



L 



IX 

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE 



General List 



Food and the War. United States Food Administration. Houghton 
Mifflin Company. 191 8. (Government price, 80 cents, postpaid.) 

An excellent and extended summary of all the newer food information 
in convenient form. 

LusK, Graham. The Fundamental Basis of Nutrition. Yale University 

Press, 1 91 4. 
A lecture published in six brief chapters for popular use. Other books 

on this subject by Dr. Lusk will also prove to be interesting, valuable, 

and simple. 



FACTS AND FIGURES 179 

McCoLLUM, E. V. The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition. The Macmil- 
lan Company, 191 8. 

An invaluable pioneer work describing experiments and far-reaching 
conclusions in the new biological estimate of food values. Popular, 
readable, and suggestive. 

Rose, Mary S. Feeding the Family. The Macmillan Company, 1917. 
A popular and accurate study with full lists, plans, dietaries, and sugges- 
tions for every member of the household. 

Sherman, Henry C. Chemistry of Food and Nutrition. 2d ed. 

The Macmillan Company, 191 8. 
A complete and scientific textbook. 

Wardall, R. a. and White, E. N. A Study of Foods. Ginn and 

Company, 191 4. 
A simple, all-round treatment of the subject from the school standpoint. 

Pamphlets, Bulletins, Leaflets 

The Child Health Alphabet. Child Health Organization, 156 Fifth 
Avenue, New York. (5 cents.) 

Diet for the School Child. Child Health Organization. (10 cents.) 

Food Allowances for Healthy Children. New York Association for Im- 
proving the Condition of the Poor. (10 cents.) 

Food for the Family. New York Association for Improving the Condi- 
tion of the Poor. (5 cents.) 

Food Primer for the Home. New York Association for Improving the 
Condition of the Poor. (25 cents.) 

Food for Young Children, Farmeis' Bulletin No. yiy, United States 
Department of Agriculture. 

How to Conduct a Nutrition Class. Child Health Organization. ( r o cents.) 

How to Select Foods. I. What the Body Needs. Farmers' Bulletin 
No. 808, United States Department of Agriculture. 

Milk, by D. R. Mendenhall. Children's Bureau, Publication No. jj. 

Principles of Nutrition and the Nutritive Value of Foods, Farmers' Bulle- 
titi No. 142, United States Department of Agriculture. 



l8o FOOD AND LIFE 

Each year sees new literature published by the government on subjects 
connected with food values, home canning, the fireless cooker, the 
home garden, etc. Instead of listing here valuable publications on these 
subjects, we suggest sending direct to Washington for lists which will 
be readily furnished and from which selection can be made. The Chil- 
dren's Bureau is issuing publications on which teachers will find it 
worth while to keep themselves informed. 

The experiments and demonstrations of the period of the war marked 
the beginning of a new era in food knowledge and food interest. 
Magazine articles, both of the war period and of to-day, present in 
attractive, readable form valuable matter which would in former years 
have been available only in technical, scientific theses. The teacher 
will find in current magazines and in the daily press supplementary 
material which will contribute to the interest of the schoolroom. 
Advertising literature issued by reliable firms contains much practical 
information. 



INDEX 



Animal foods, 27, 31-32, 34, 46-48, Fuel foods, 30-33, 34, 40, 41, 91, 103, 

50, 86-87 104, 123, 141, 177-178 
Appetite, 55-56, 62-66, 76 

Gardening, 96-105, 148-149, 157, 174- 

Body, the, 2, 4, 7, 14-20, 21-26, 37- 17^ 

38, 41, 53-59, 76-79 

Bread, 31, 34, 62, 89-90, 93-95, I4i> Hunger, 4, 6, 55 

143, 146, 171 

Bulk, how supplied, 34, 50, 94, 102, Kitchens, 11 5-1 17 

125, 141 

Buying, rules for, 32, 122-125, 177, Ljfg foods, 38-42, 44-49, 50, 91, 103, 

178 104, 123, 141, 176-178 

Calories, 21-26, 62, 108, no, 114-115. Markets, 82-88, 125 

143, 169-17 1 Mgat^ 27, 42, 45-48, 50, 68-69, 86, 

Canning, 130-131, i33-i35. 176 122-123, 125, 130, 131, 135, 145, 

Cereals, 27, 30-31, 32, 34, 84, 87, 123, 177-178 

125,141,143,177,178 Milk, 27, 34, 46-48, 50, 86, 89-95, 

Cooking, 67-73, 77-78, 108-118 ^^^_^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ,^g^ ^^^^ ^^^^ 

Diet, an all-round, 34, 50, 176-178 '"~ ''* 

„. ,. o Minerals, 48-49, 50, 102-104, 141, 172, 

Digestion, 40-41, 53-59, 78 , t ty, j > t t / 

Drying, 130, 131-133 '^^ 

Eating, rules for, 52, 106, 138-144, Plant foods, 27, 30-31, 34, 45, 46, 50, 

160 84-87, 101-104 

Eggs, 34, 46-48, 50, 92, 122-123, 125, Proteins, 45-48, 49, 50, 102-104, 141 

171, 178 

Ration, the, 9-10, 36-37, 41-42, 108, 

Fats, 31-32, 34, 177-17S no, 150, 152, 154, 164-168 
Fish, 27, 45-47, 50, 87. 131, 151, 178 

Fruits, 31, 34, 48, 50, 62, 87, 101-103, Saving, loo-ioi, 126-127, 128-136, 

125, 130-135, 141, 171, 177-178 150-152, 157 

181 



l82 FOOD AND LIFE 

Smell, 76-77, 79, 172 61, 85-87, 101-104, 130-135, 141, 

Sugars, 31, 34,61-62,84-85, 104, 114, 171, 177-178 

125, 1 30-13 1, 142 Vitamines, 48, 50, 103-104, 141 

Taste, 53-59, 76-77> "4> 139- ^7- Water, 30, 31, 50, 101-104, 132-133- 

138, 173 
Vegetables, 27, 30-31, 34, 45, 48, 50, Weight, 2, 22-24, 161-164 



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